Soy sauce chicken

While the quality of the chicken is critical for dishes like white cut chicken and salted baked chicken, for these chicken wings, it's the soy sauce that's key.

Soy sauce chicken Credit: Alana Dimou

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  15 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 100 g fine sea salt
• 1.2 kg chicken wings, well washed
• 2 litres iced water
• 20 g yellow rock sugar
• 1 tbsp rose wine
• shredded spring onion greens, to serve

Soy sauce stock

• 750 ml (3 cups) light soy sauce
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 150 g yellow rock sugar
• 125 ml (½ cup) rosé wine
• 10 red shallots, peeled
• 10 slices ginger
• 5 spring onions, sliced into batons

Soaking time: 1 hour

Resting time: 20 minutes

Instructions

1. Dissolve the salt in 2 litres water. Add the chicken wings and leave to soak for 1 hour. Drain and pat the wings dry with paper towel.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring 2 litres water to the boil. Prepare the iced water in a similar-sized container.
3. Put the wings in the boiling water for 1 minute, then put them straight into the iced water for 5 minutes before draining. This step will tighten the skin.
4. Combine all the ingredients for the soy sauce stock with 750 ml (3 cups) water in a medium wok or saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally until the rock sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Turn the heat to high then add the wings. Bring to the boil, then turn off the heat and let the wings sit in the stock for 10 minutes.
6. Turn the heat back to medium for 1–2 minutes, until the stock is steaming again, then turn off the heat and let the wings sit in the stock for another 10 minutes.
7. Drain the wings, reserving the stock liquid and aromatics. Transfer the wings to a tray and place in the fridge to cool to room temperature.
8. Meanwhile, pour 250 ml (1 cup) of the reserved stock into a small saucepan along with the reserved shallot, ginger and spring onion. Bring the liquid to simmer. Add the rock sugar and stir until dissolved, then pour in the wine and turn the heat off.
9. Serve the chicken wings topped with the hot soy stock and spring onion greens.

Note

• Tau chau is a first-press soy sauce you can get in Hong Kong. Similar to extra-virgin olive oil, tau chau is the very first extract of soy sauce from the first round of fermentation. Each tank of fermented beans only has one round of production, so this soy sauce is rare and expensive. Here, I use a mixture of light and dark soy sauce, but feel free to use tau chau if you can get your hands on some.

Hong Kong Local by ArChan Chan, published by Smith Street Books (RRP $39.99). Photography by Alana Dimou.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.