Sunday, April 21, 2013

Chinese Style Oyster Soy sauce Chicken with Carrots and Mushrooms

There are variations to this but I decided to post the one with the updated version with the condensed rich sauce which my man loves. When he polishes off the chicken, he would keep the sauce and dip it with bread: ) I added carrots coz I like them, and also wolfberries to sweeten the sauce more so that I can use less sugar.


Oyster Drumsticks with Chinese Mushrooms and carrots

I didnt follow the traditional recipe and modify it instead, with less dark soy sauce (hence the lighter shade of brown). Also, I dont like to add too much sodium or refined sugar if I can help it.
So u can adjust the oyster to 2TBsp if you want more flavour and rich sauce.

Ingredients

- pack of chilled dozen wings/or drumlettes / or 4 drumsticks
- 2 inch ginger sliced into thin slices (for frying)
- 4 cloves minced garlic
- 1 large smashed garlic clove with skin on (for flavoring oil)
- 1 carrot (optional), cut into 1 inch chucks
- 1 inch of grated ginger
- 6 presoaked Chinese Mushrooms or Shitake Mushrooms or Button mushrooms
- half brown or red onion, cut into chucks (you dont want them too small).
- Rinsed Wolfberries (optional, amount up to you but a small handful. Soak rinsed berries with 2 TBSP of water.)
- 1 normal size mug of water
- 2 stalks of rinsed spring onion

Sauces

- 1.5Tb Light soy sauce
- 1Tb Oyster sauce
- 1 tsp of sugar
- Dash of white or grated black pepper
- 1.5Tbsp  Chinese wine or Shaoxing Wine
- 1tsp of sesame oil
- 2Tbsp of cooking oil. 


Cooking Steps

1. Marinate chicken wings/ drumlets/ drumsticks with all the sauces above, except the sesame oil. 

2. Add the grated ginger and minced garlic and mix well.

3. Leave the marinate to work for at least 20mins.

4. Heat pan with 1 TBSP of cooking oil. Add onion chucks, sliced ginger. Stir fry till onion is starts to soften.

5. Add Chinese Mushrooms and wolfberries & the water.

6. Add 1tsp if Sesame Oil after about 5mins. Stiry fry for another 2mins.

7. Remove from pan all cooked ingredients into a bowl. (Dont prolong or sesame taste will b diluted to nothing. We want to retain a hint)

8. In a clean frying pan, add the remaining 1TBsp cooking oil.

9. When oil is hot, add the clove of smashed garlic to the oil and when it browns, remove.

10. Add sliced ginger and cook till starting to turn light brown. Add 2 half stalks of spring onion (the white part) add the drumsticks, but NOT the marinate sauce. If the chicken starts to stick, u may add a little more olive cooking oil.

11. After about 3mins of turning the chicken drumstick around and nicely brown the skin, add the marinate sauce and add 1 mug of water to dilute. If the sauce is still too salty, you may add more water till it reaches the saltiness level you like. 


12. Add the chopped carrots, this will help sweeten the sauce so dont add any sugar before this.

13. Close the lid of the pot/ wok and at medium flame, give it 10mins. This steam cooking will cook more evenly and soften your carrots nicely.

14. Usually large drumsticks are easy to tell if they are cook when you stop seeing the pink juices seeping out at the top. However, to test if drumstick is cook, poke a fork through. If you still see a lot of red blood juice running out, that means its not ready, stick it with lid close for another 2mins. Retest. Once u see clear juice, its cooked. If u still see a slight pink after alot of clear juices, its fine. the meat will continue to cook within for another few mins on its own. 

15. The sauce should be nice and rich now. If u like it more watery you can add water here and salt/sugar to adjust taste. Usually I dont have to.


16. Throw back the cooked mushroom and onions in.

17. Give it a good toss to combined the mixture.

18. Garnish with chopped spring onion (the green part) if you like.

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