Asian Red Chicken

I promised recipes so here's the first one! Adapted from "The Age" Good Weekend Guide. This is a winner in our house. every time. It tastes better than the photo looks too!

Freeze the leftover stock and use it next time, replenishing with equal proportions of the ingredients. You can use the stock again and again like this and it gets richer in flavour every time.

Wine: Any white wine goes well with this, but I prefer a sauvignon blanc or semillon. Beer is fine as well.

Feeds 4-5 people
Ingredients
½ cup chinese rice wine
1 tbsp sugar
2 cloves garlic
2 sticks cinnamon
3 star anise
1 large knob ginger
½ cup light soy sauce
½ cup dark soy sauce
3 cup chicken stock
1 chopped chicken
½ teasp sesame oil
2 spring onions

Heat rice wine and sugar (a chunk of palm sugar is best) together in a wok until sugar dissolves. Add garlic, cinnamon, star anise, ginger, soy sauces and stock.

Add chicken pieces to cold stock. Add water or stock until liquid covers chicken. Bring liquid to the boil, skimming off any froth. Then reduce heat and simmer gently for 15-20 mins.

Turn the heat off and let the chicken cool in the liquid for at least 30 minutes or until cool. Drain the chick and rub with sesame oil (or just put it into the pot earlier with the chicken like I do!)

Serve warm at room temperature (or reheat in the microwave) with rice and spring onions. Pour some of the cooking juices over the rice.

Comments

[Ellen]

Mmmm.... that chicken was delicious! Recommended to everyone and anyone (bar vegetarians).

[cheryl]

where's the eggplant recipe?

will there be wine and music suggestions alongside the recipes?

we began a worship thingy tonight at mike and claire's... fab... mike bought cleanskins and we did wine labels for the wine... going to start a series of them. i'll email one through.

[craig]

Eggplant is coming. Didn't you see the wine suggestion? Did you want more? How about Nepenthe Sauvignon Blanc from the Adelaide Hills?

Great to hear about the worship. I'm jealous. Designing wine labels in worship... I like it! Grace designed the winning wine label for the Mt Barker High School Merlot 2005. We haven't seen a drop yet.

[cheryl]

we made the labels before the worship. i'll bring a bottle over next time. the idea was to make postcards during the worship, but we never quite got there...

perhaps i'll make the red chicken for the worship dinner next time, from the stock you made on the last night at our place.