Braised Chicken

Chicken thighs cooked with dried mushrooms and the water they soaked in.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on
• 25 g dried shiitake mushrooms
• 300 ml warm water, for soaking the mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 3 slices ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 spring onions, sliced

Method

1. Soak the mushrooms in the warm water for 30 minutes. Keep the soaking water — it carries most of what you are soaking them for, and it is the only liquid this braise gets.
2. Squeeze the mushrooms out over the bowl, cut off the hard stems, and halve the caps.
3. Brown the thighs skin-side down in the oil, 5 minutes, without moving them. Pour off most of the fat that runs out.
4. Add the ginger, garlic and mushrooms and stir for a minute.
5. Add the soy sauce, wine and sugar, then strain the mushroom water in, leaving the grit behind in the bowl.
6. Simmer covered for 25 minutes, turning the thighs once. This is a short braise and the liquid is barely reduced at the end — a chicken thigh goes from tender to stringy if you treat it like shin.
7. Scatter the spring onions over and serve straight from the pan.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes