How To Cook Shoyu Chicken

I receive some enquiries recently asking me how to cook Shoyu Chicken. As I love shoyo chicken and I haven’t cooked it for some time, I’ve decided to raise this post to answer my readers enquiries as well as pleasing myself and my beloved on Valentine's Day.

My shoyu chicken is of course Hong Kong Cantonese style. We usually call it Soy Sauce Chicken. It is extremely easy to cook and very delicious. Here we go.

Since cooking a whole chicken is quite demanding, I’ll leave it to professional chefs. For home cooking, I’m going to work on chicken thighs only, which are good for kids as well as parties.

How To Cook Shoyu Chicken

Ingredients
4 boneless chicken thighs. These are all we need. To reduce the intake of fat and cholesterol, I usually remove the chicken skins. However it is your choice to keep it or not.

Shoyu Chicken Seasoning Sauce

• 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of Huadiao wine (Shaoxing cooking wine)
• 1 tablespoon of water
• Some grinded black pepper
• Pinch of sugar
  
  Get all these into a bowl and mix well for a minute or so to make sure the sugar is melted. Marinate the chicken thighs with the seasoning solution. Turn the meat up side down at least once through out the seasoning period to ensure both sides of the meat absorb the equal amount of seasoning sauce.

Seasoning Tips

The secret to making delicious Shoyu Chicken is the seasoning sauce and the seasoning period. Allow several hours for seasoning to ensure the best taste. I usually season it in the morning if I want to cook for dinner. If I want to cook for lunch, I’ll start seasoning the night before. If you are running short of time, you should allow at least 30 minutes of seasoning before cooking.

Cooking Directions

1. Heat a pan, add 1 tablespoon of EVO.
2. Lay all chicken thighs flat into the pan to ensure they all receive even heat. (**DO NOT throw away the remaining seasoning sauce, we'll use it later on**)
3. Turn to medium heat, cover with a lid.
4. Cook for 4 minutes.
5. Turn meat up side down. You’ll see the beautifully brown colored chicken. Remember you have some leftover seasoning sauce in the plate? It’s time to add this residue solution to the pan. Cover again and cook for 2 minutes. Check if the sauce is getting too thick. If so, add a little bit of water and continue cooking for another 2 minutes with the lid on.
6. Dishing up and serve hot. Best to go with plain rice.

NOTE: The total cooking time should be between 8 and 10 minutes. This will avoid under- or over-cooking and ensure the maximum tenderness of the chicken.

Warning: Do NOT Use These Cooking Oils

Do you find cooking Shoyu Chicken simple and easy? I really love it because it is so delicious. Next time when you have friends asking you how to cook Shoyu Chicken, you may direct them to this blog post.

Shoyu Chicken (Soy Sauce Chicken)

YOUR VALENTINE BONUS: Actually Chinese has a lot of chicken cooking methods and Shoyu Chicken is just one of them. Others like Drunken Chicken, Hainanese Chicken Rice and many others are also very delicious. If you want to learn more about the Chinese way of chicken cooking, you may want to take a look at my friend Nicholas Zhou’s cookbook: Healthy Chinese Cooking. If you buy through this link and send me your ClickBank receipt, I’ll email you my Hong Kong Chinese Food Close Up eBook for FREE. Send your receipt to hkchinesefood(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)hk Enjoy Cooking and Happy Valentine ! Anna February 14, 2011

Hong Kong Food Blog - How To Cook Shoyu Chicken

Warning: Do NOT Use These Cooking Oils