Recipe: Three Cups Chicken (Taiwan) Print E-mail

三杯鸡 - san bei ji

So simple. So good. You basically throw all the ingredients in and let it stew down and caramelize. For those of you who are bone and skin averse, just try this once…and have someone else chop up the chicken parts! Once the meat stews down, it slides right off the bone. You can make this dish with chopped scallion greens in place of the spicy basil, but make an effort to get the basil as it makes for a wonderful flavor combination.
san bei ji ingredients

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients

600 gr 
chicken drumettes (the fat portion of a wing piece)
20 gr
 ginger

 5-8 cloves 

garlic 
30 gr
spring onion, white and light green parts
1 or 2
 fresh red chilies (optional)
1/4 cup   
lite soy
1/4 cup  wine (I use a fermented Taiwanese rice wine, or Mi Jiu - 米酒); any type of grain alcohol is alright, but what you use will effect the flavors of the finished dish.
1 Tbsp
 dark vinegar 
1-2 tsp
 sugar
2 Tbsp sesame oil (although the traditional recipe calls for equal parts soy, wine and sesame oil, hence the name three cup chicken, you already have some cooking oil in the pan, the chicken skin also renders out quite a bit of fat when cooking, and sesame oil is a strong flavored oil, so I have reduced it to 2Tbsp in this recipe.
1 cup
Taiwanese or spicy Thai/Italian basil

 cooking oil

             
Preparation

With a cleaver, hack the drumettes (or have your butcher do it) into smaller pieces (for better flavor); I usually chop small pieces in two and larger pieces into three. You can also cook the drumettes whole, but will have to stew the chicken for longer--if using this method, add an extra 1/4 cup of water when you add the soy and wine.

Slice ginger paper thin so they can become tasty caramelized morsels. Cut spring onions into 1 inch pieces at a diagonal. Peel and smash garlic lightly. If using chilies, cut into 1 cm pieces on a diagonal. Stem basil if thick stemmed, or break slender stems into bite size pieces.
 
Heat the oil in your wok until very hot. Add chicken pieces and fry until beginning to brown. Add ginger slices, then add garlic, chilies and scallions and cook more until fragrant.

Add soy, wine, vinegar, sugar and sesame oil; mix well, cover and simmer for about 30 minutes (you might check it every 10 minutes and give the chicken a stir), or until liquid has mostly reduced; this may take longer if using whole drumettes. When nearly dry, add the basil and mix well, making sure the leaves are all coated by the sauce/oil (otherwise they will wilt and blacken). 

sanbeijisimmering.jpg sanbeijifinished.jpg

If there is still a lot of liquid once the chicken has cooked down and falls off of the bone easily, then turn the heat to high and cook with the cover off until the sauce has thickened and the pot is nearly dry.

Remove from heat and serve. If the chicken has rendered out a lot of oil, you should pour off the fat before moving to serving dish, or simply use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken. Note: San Bei Ji is traditionlly cooked in a clay pot until quite dry and the sauce is very sticky and caramelized, but this can make for a difficult clean up.