A twist on a comfort dish that's popular around S.E. Asia, Hong Kong & Macau. I've enjoyed this dish many times in The Philippines and Hong Kong, it really brings back memories. I've done my own thing with it, but left it mostly as I found it, and I hope that you enjoy it and do your own thing with it too.
This is a semi-traditional "soya" roast chicken recpipe that's relatively common in many parts of S.E. Asia as well as Hong Kong and Macau. It's juicy, delectable, and with a combination of sweet, spicy, salty, sour & savory, it's hard to stop eating.
You'll find it chopped on the bone and served in bite-sized pieces with fragrant rice, or de-boned, sliced, and served with egg noodles in soup.
This recipe takes advantage of what can happen when you cook with several varieties of soy sauce; if you've only known the Japanese style from the grocery store or those little packets that are often sent with take-out, get ready for a treat! The only difference in the examples shown is the brand of thick soy sauce used (apart from the chicken obviously being in pieces).
Sauce and garnish sufficient to roast and garnish one whole roaster chicken, or up to three cornish hens, or the equalivent in weight of pieces such as quarters.
- Chef's knife (suitable for removing the backbone of a whole chicken or hen, or for separating pieces of leg quarters). I recommend using one with a 10" blade if you have it, don't use a thin blade. Alternately, or perhaps even more safely for the backbone-removal uninitiated: forged poultry shears.
- Oven and roasting tray large enough for butterflied (spatchcocked) whole chicken, or arranged pieces.
- (Optional) small food processor (the chopper attachment that comes with most immersion blenders is more than suitable here)
- (Optional) clean small spritz bottle to spray pickling spice on garnish
- (Optional) Small pastry brush for applying sauce to chicken, use synthetic bristles to avoid staining the brush (it's soy sauce after all).
- Kitchen paper (any paper towel that won't leave lint on food is fine, I like the brown recycled kind). Use a few coffee filters if all you have are the quilted paper towels that leave lint.
- Aluminium Foil
- 10 pieces of whole star anise, fragrant, ideally unbroken. They should have a strong smell similar to liccorice and leave a faint residue on your fingers if you rub them.
- 1 head of fresh garlic, cloves peeled and crushed
- 1/2 cup thick sweet Chinese-style soy sauce (see note) Lee Kum Kee (Amazon link) works.
- 1/4 cup good oyster sauce. Lee Kum Kee (Amazon Link) is again a good option here.
- 1 Tablespoon Chinese-style brewed soy sauce. Marca Piña is in my opinion the best available (Amazon Link) but any mild, non-Japanese style soy sauce should work. If you need to use Japanese, go with the lowest sodium variety you can find.
- 1 Teaspoon calamansi juice (see notes) or lime juice in a pinch
- 1 Tablespoon fermented chili paste (see notes) or fruity hot sauce of your liking. You can use less if you like, but using more isn't recommended as it would overpower the other flavors.
- 1/4 cup spiced vinegar (see notes), which (optionally) contains a splash of good fish sauce.
- 1/4 regular carrot (or one baby carrot), finely grated
- 1 bunch fresh scallions, thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh Italian or curly parsely
- 1 Whole roaster chicken, or the equlivanet in weight of skin-on parts. If doing parts, I recommend using only dark meat, as white meat off the bone is likely to dry out prior to achieving the desired color and flavor on the skin. Having gizards (liver / heart) on hand is nice, as they can be part of the sauce, but not mandatory.
- 1/4 cup cold water or chicken stock for use as a roasting liquid
- Please read the entire recipe prior to cooking. While I've tried my best to break things down into meaningful successive steps, it's important that you read through this entire recipe before starting. This dish is particularly prone to burning if you don't keep an eye on it, as thick soy sauce contains sugars that can quickly over-carmelize.
- Regarding sauces: Source what you want from Amazon, but a trip to your local Asian market would probably be cheaper and let you get smaller quantities. For authentic Chinese sauces, look at the label for depictions of "plump" looking children at the higher-end of the price range, or do some research prior.
- Regarding calamansi: This is a small sort of mini-lime fruit that is native to various parts of Asia. It's not quite lemon, it's not quite lime, and it's certainly not quite lemon/lime. The pure stuff costs a lot, so get what you want. If you go to an Asian market, ask for something called Toyomansi (Amazon Link - often unavailable) which is an ideal soy sauce already containing the right amount of calamansi juice. Even the calamansi soda on Amazon will work for this recipe, don't spend a ton on something you might not use before expiration. Fresh squeezed is best, as with any citrus.
- Regarding spiced vinegar: Don't use distilled white vinegar. Any white wine, rice, rice wine or even pure cane vinegar will do here. Most grocery stores these days stock dozens of white and rice wine vinegars, get something palatable from a spoon. Mix half a cup with some chili paste or flakes of your liking, and some sea salt or a splash of fish sauce, and let it come together. Sour, Spicy, Salty -> in that order, is what you're after when it hits your mouth. I never make the same batch twice, but half a cup of good vinegar with a squirt of sriracha and a few drops of fish sauce is a great start. Chilling this concoction isn't necessary, but it'll last longer, and have the added benefit of 'curling' the sliced scallions a little, which is pretty..
- Stretching the combined sauce: If you need a little more sauce to coat a larger chicken, or more pieces, you can just add a little more of either component. More thick soy sauce makes it sweeter, resulting in a darker chicken, but watch for more sugar that can burn. More oyster sauce brings out the savory aspect, while more of the brewed soy sauce just brings the mellow soy flavor. You don't want a lot of leftover sauce in the bottom of the pan, you want just enough to color and flavor the few milimeters of roasting liquid you need to maintain to baste properly and maintain moisture.
- Did I mention to not allow anything to burn? Keep an eye on this or the sugars in the sauce can quickly carmelize almost like a carbon snake from chemistry class, resulting in a very acrid smell and taste that the skin of the chicken (let's face it, that's the best part of this recipe!) will absorb. This is an exercise in patience: you don't want to continue letting your oven lose heat, but you also gotta baste frequently and add more liquid if it's needed.
- (Prepare the chicken) Remove the chicken from the fridge and allow the chill to come off of it. Don't let poultry sit out at room temperature, but also don't put ice-cold chicken in the oven. Taking it out 45 minutes to an hour prior and leaving it uncovered should suffice. Thaw any frozen chicken the day before (completely). Prepare it:
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If using parts: Trim excess skin from the parts, pat the skin of the pieces dry with kitchen paper.
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If using a whole chicken: Spatchcock the chicken. If you've never done that, you can google "how to spatchcock a chicken" and turn up 20+ great videos. Some recommend using poultry shears, some use large chef's knives - I like using the latter. Do what suits you. Save the neck and trimmings to include in the pan so the additional fat can render into the basting liquid.
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If using cornish hens: Spatchcock the hens, but don't trim off any excess skin that you can avoid, just tuck it under as you place the bird. The skin on small hens will pull toward itself (which is a beautiful effect with this recipe), but you don't want the skin pulling apart too much. As with a whole chicken, save and include any trimmings.
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(Prepare the "soya" sauce) It's not really a marniade, but it preps like one. If the chicken came with liver and heart included, (optionally) throw those pieces into the mini processor with a teaspoon of water and pulse until you get a sort of fine paste. Combine that paste with the soy sauce, oyster sauce, brewed soy sauce and whatever fermented chili paste you're using. If not using the liver or heart, just combine the sauces. Set the sauce aside in a bowl with a spoon to make use of it.
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(Prepare the pan) Arrange the star anise, smashed garlic cloves and trimmed bits of neck and excess skin evenly on the roasting pan, and place the chicken on top of them (skin side up). Spoon the sauce over the chicken and use the back of the spoon to work it into the nooks and corners of the skin. Don't reserve any of the sauce, don't worry if some drips off of the chicken. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees while the sauce starts to sink into the skin. You can use a pastry brush to dab sauce from the pan back onto the chicken.
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(Roast & tend the chicken) Pour as much of the 1/4 cup of water or stock that you prepped from the ingredients list in the bottom of the pan without touching the chicken (don't wash any of the sauce off). You want a few milimeters of liquid in the pan as the chicken roasts, including whatever sauce has collected after running off the chicken, this is essential for basting or the fat that starts seeping out of the chicken skin is simply going to burn on the bottom of the pan along with the excess sauce. Remember - thick soy sauce contains a fair amount of sugar. Use a spoon to mix any of the sauce drippings with the added liquid and put the chicken in the oven to roast. Baste the chicken qickly every 20 minutes of cooking; add small amounts of very hot water to the roasting pan if you see the sauce in the bottom look like it's carmelizing. Remember that the color of the skin will deepen in brown tone as the chicken rests in cooler air, so don't be tempted to overcook the bird because it doesn't seem dark enough.
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Allow the chicken to rest in a foil tent for at least half as long as you cooked it, or about 25 - 30 minutes, whichever is shorter.
Arrange the chopped scallions, parsley and shredded carrots in a line on a piece of kitchen paper (the brown recycled stuff is ideal for this) and use the spritz bottle to gently spray the garnish with the spiced vinegar. Use a dessert fork to toss it around a bit, and then add a light amount of salt & pepper to it.
Cut the chicken into pieces and arrange on a deep platter. Spoon over the remaining sauce, star anise pieces, and chunks of roast garlic. Then spoon over the garnish.
This is typically served with white long grain rice, I like to steam mine with 1 star anise, 2 green cardamom pods and 2 whole cloves per 2 cups of uncooked rice. Don't use parboiled rice as the texture will be off-putting with the skin of this kind of chicken.
You can also serve this simply cut into parts on a board at the table, with rice on the side, similar to this:
... and just sprinkle the garnish and some shrimp crackers around it. Or go nuts, do what you do. It's all about loving what you cook and the people that eat it.
Just a grumpy old cook retired from the line. I work mostly in PR and community stuff these days.
Copyright © 2018 Tim Post. Use as you see fit, attribution is appreciated. I can be reached at tinkertim at that mail service Google runs, or @tinkertim on Twitter.