For SPL and JELSome people have asked me about my mini "dedications" at the top of some of my posts. I thought I'd take a moment to explain the reason I like to do my mini dedications - and that is, more often than not, the food I am inspired and encouraged to make is intricately tied to the people around me. This recipe, for example, has a very unique story. The first person in the dedication, was a former roommate and she LOVED this ginger sauce which is served in Chinese restaurants, either with spring chicken or Hainan Chicken. We used to go to dimsum and try and get this ginger sauce (almost more a relish actually) and often ended up arguing with the waiter who refused to give it to us UNLESS we ordered the appropriate chicken dish. After having it a few times, I assured her that I could recreate it at home for her so that she could eat it any time...and with that, ginger sauce was born. The chicken was just a simple straightforward recipe that would go with the ginger sauce - I was looking for a way to highlight the sauce (since it was her favorite) and that is the chicken I came up with.
The second name in the post, is the friend who actually reminded me of this dish. About a month ago, in a regular conversation with her, JEL mentioned that her FAVORITE dish of mine was some chicken dish I had made for her over 10 years ago, and to this day was one of her favorite meals. I turned to her and asked, "What chicken dish?" and then she proceeded to describe it to me. Being a great cook herself, she carefully identified all the key components and described it to me in a way that made it clear that I had made this dish in the past, although I had no recollection of such a thing. After hearing her description, I decided that I would recreate the recipe to serve to her over a weekend dinner.
The Cripsy Skin Sake Chicken with Ginger Sauce is actually a simple dish - it has 8 ingredients, chicken, sake, soy sauce, ginger, salt, scallion, oil and pepper and merely requires an overnight marinade for the chicken and some baking time. I will offer up two methods of baking, one slow and one less slow, both resulting in a crispy skin. I myself prefer the slower method (1.5-2 hours at 350 degrees) only because you end up with the chicken skin wonderfully crispy, the fat of the chicken fully rendered, and the meat just melting off the bone. The quicker method (30 minutes at 500, 15-30 minutes at 350) crisps the skin, renders the fat but does not yield the melting meat experience.
Crispy Skin Sake Chicken with Ginger Sauce
Chicken Marinade
3-4 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (do NOT be tempted to go with the skinless or boneless - it will completely ruin the experience)
1 cup sake
1 cup soy sauce
Mix sake and soy sauce in a container where you will marinate the chicken. Add the chicken. Cover and marinate - at least 8 hours, if not overnight.
SLOW cooking method (1 -1.5 hour)
Preheat oven to 350. Carefully remove chicken from marinade, allowing as much of the marinade to drip off. Place chicken into roasting pan. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. Check every 15 minutes until skin is golden and crispy. Chicken should be golden, with crispy skin.
Serve with ginger sauce.
LESS SLOW cooking method (45 minutes-1 hour)
Preheat oven to 500. Carefully remove chicken from marinade, allowing as much of the marinade to drip off. Place chicken into roasting pan. Bake at 500 for 30 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for another 15-30 minutes. (depends on your oven) Chicken should be golden, with crispy skin.
Serve with ginger sauce.
Ginger Sauce
1/2 cup finely chopped ginger (in a mini prep food processor for the finer chop)
1/2 cup vegetable oil (grape seed, canola, safflower, corn are all fine choices)
3 tablespoons scallions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons salt
pepper to taste
Combine the ingredients together. Allow to sit for 30 minutes to allow flavors to develop.
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3 comments:
The sake chicken thighs turned out great. The skin was very crispy and the meat very moist, just as you had described. I will say, that in my oven, the chicken really only needed about 1 hour 15-20 min. In fact, I think I overcooked it a bit. Good thing I checked at about an hour and hour and a half. The sauce was really tasty too. Also important to note is that the chicken should be baked on the middle rack. If it's too high, the chicken skin will crisp and brown much too quickly. I served this with your egg rolls and some spicy green beans and it turned out to be a wonderful birthday dinner for my cousin.
I made this last month and blogged about it. I had to come back and tell you we thought it was DELICIOUS! I don't even like skin-on chicken (it's Hubby's fave) but it was a key ingredient for this dish. Good stuff! Thanks for another great recipe! I have so many more to try... ;)
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