This is the easy version of a Cantonese favorite… Soy Sauce Chicken Drumsticks. If you don’t have time to cook an entire chicken, my dad will show you a simplified version using just drumsticks to get the same flavors in a fraction of the time, perfect for a weeknight dinner. Cheers! We’ll start with the aromatics to flavor the sauce. I washed this ginger, so it's clean. Cut it into thin slices. First, we’ll cut an ounce of ginger into thin slices. 1 oz of ginger. Very simple. I'm using 3 cloves of garlic. It's very easy to peel the garlic. Pinch the clove by squeezing at the two pointy ends. The peel will be easy to take off then. It's very simple to peel this clove. After peeling the garlic, we’ll slice it. Slice the garlic. If you want to learn how to cut twice as fast and prevent injuries, we have a free 6 minute video lesson for you. Click the link in our description or scan the QR code to access it for free! We’ll continue chopping the garlic into slices, then move on to a classic homemade aromatic. We dried these mandarin peels ourselves. We grew the fruit. These peels have been aged for 20 years. They're well-aged! I continue to dry more each year. I'm going to cut them up. Cut them into small pieces. 1/4 oz, maybe 1/5 oz, it doesn't really matter. Briefly soak the dried mandarin peels. We’ll soak the dried mandarin peels for just a minute or two while we create the sauce. If you don’t have dried mandarin peels, feel free to skip them. Let's make the soy sauce-based sauce. 2 tbsp of oyster sauce. 3 tbsp of light soy sauce. 3 tbsp of dark soy sauce. 2 tbsp of Shaoxing rice wine. 1/4 tsp of white pepper. I'm using brown sugar today. Lots of people use rock sugar. It doesn't matter. White granulated sugar is fine, too. Soy sauce chicken cannot be entirely salty. We balance the saltiness by adding plenty of sugar. 2 tbsp of brown sugar. Add 1/2 tsp of salt. Not too salty. Mix well, then give it a taste. Now, we can try the sauce and make any adjustments needed. Okay. Add some water. I'm adding 1/2 cup of water for now. Finally, we’ll add water to complete the sauce. We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com along with step-by-step instructions and video clips to guide you as you make the recipe at home. The color looks great. With the sauce done, we can move on to blanching the drumsticks. Now, we'll work on the chicken. We're going to blanch them very quickly. We want to remove the superficial oils so that the chicken can take on color better. First, we’ll add 6 cups of hot water to the wok. Heat on. Before we start blanching the chicken, let me share a tip. We're going to cut into the thickest part of the meat here. It'll help the chicken drumstick cook through better. The thickest part. Just poke the knife into it. Not too deep, and make sure you don't cut the chicken skin. If you pierce the chicken skin, it'll detach from the meat. Never cut through the chicken skin, okay? Move the chicken skin, then pierce it To be extra safe with more stability, put the drumsticks down on a cutting board to pierce them. Now, we'll add the chicken to the pot. We’ll make sure each drumstick is submerged in the water. I'm using a narrower pot today, so I don't need as much sauce to fill it. "How do you achieve an even color?" Before you cook the chicken in the sauce, rinse the chicken skin in boiling water. Make sure it's boiling water. It'll remove the surface oils so it can take on color evenly. After a quick blanch, the chicken skin has tightened up and the surface oils are gone. We can take the chicken out now. After a minute and a half, we can take out the drumsticks. Discard this water. Heat off. Now my dad discards the blanching water and rinses the wok in the sink. Then we’ll wipe it dry to get ready to stir-fry some aromatics. Turn the heat to high. We don't need the pot to be screaming hot. Add 1 tbsp of oil. Cook the ginger for a bit. Heating up the ginger helps it release flavor, and the same with the garlic. We’ll add both the ginger and the garlic then stir-fry to bring out the aromatic flavors for about a minute. This is the simplest recipe for soy sauce chicken drumsticks. We're skipping things like Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon. This is a good recipe for younger folks. After a minute, we’ll add in the dried mandarin peel. We added the dried mandarin peels as well. We’ll stir-fry for another 30 seconds. It's starting to get aromatic. Next, we'll add 1/2 cup of water to help it cook. Give it a stir. We want the ginger and dried mandarin peel to release their flavors before we add the soy sauce mixture. Now we’ll cover and let it simmer on low for 2 minutes. We're cooking all the flavor from the aromatics. After two minutes, we can uncover. They've released their flavors. Add the soy sauce mixture. Now we can pour in about half of the sauce we created earlier. High heat. I'll pour the rest of this over top. Put the chicken in. Then we’ll add in the drumsticks, making sure each one sits in the sauce. They all fit in here just right. Now, I'll pour the rest of the sauce over top. Lower the heat, so it's not bubbling so much. This is how the chicken takes on color. With the rest of the sauce, my dad likes to spoon it over the drumsticks so they can get some color and flavor on top as well. Today’s soy sauce drumsticks or si jau gai bei is a variation of the Cantonese classic, soy sauce chicken, which traditionally uses a whole chicken. Dating back 2200 years ago during the Han Dynasty in China, soy sauce was originally developed to stretch the food supply due to the high cost of salt, but it has since become one of the most common and important ingredients in all of Asian cuisine. In Cantonese, soy sauce is called si jau, and today we’re using two common types. Light soy sauce or saang cau, which is what most people think of as “regular” soy sauce. It is saltier and is mainly used to add umami and savory flavors. Dark soy sauce or lou cau is milder, sweeter, and also thicker from added caramel and a longer fermentation process. My dad uses tamari and dark soy sauce interchangeably mainly to add a darker color to a dish like today’s drumsticks. Lower the heat so it doesn't boil so furiously. If it's boiling too hard, the sauce will evaporate quickly. Then it won't be able to cook the chicken. Poach the chicken gently. Cook for 10 minutes like this, then flip the chicken. Low heat. Now, we’ll cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Shirley from the Canto Cooking Club asks, "How do you make sure the soy sauce seeps through the skin and into the meat?" First, do what I demonstrated earlier and make a cut into the thickest part of the meat. Then it'll absorb the soy sauce easily. It cooks better, and it absorbs the sauce better, right? Cam, can you do your "I'm not tired" face? I'm not tired! Angry face! Why angry face? After 10 minutes of simmering, we can uncover and flip the drumsticks. This is what the color looks like after poaching in the soy sauce mixture. For a more intense color, add more dark soy sauce. After flipping all the drumsticks, we’ll cover and let it simmer again. Let's take a look. After just 2 minutes, we’ll uncover. Turn the heat to high to reduce the sauce. High heat will help reduce the sauce and concentrate its flavor. Take the lid off so the steam can escape. Pour the sauce over the chicken. As the sauce reduces, my dad likes to baste the drumsticks with it to give them even more color and flavor. We’ll let the sauce reduce on high heat for another 6 minutes, basting occasionally. After 6 minutes, we can give the sauce a taste test. Give it a taste, is it salty enough? It's salty enough. Tastes good, right? Nice and sweet. Not too salty, and not too sweet. Soy sauce chicken drumsticks shouldn't be too salty. It should have a hint of sweetness. "How do you store the sauce afterwards so it does not become moldy?" Store it in a dry container. Your bowl or container should be dry. Let it cool down, then refrigerate it, and it won't get moldy. It should be fine for a week. If you kept cooking it, could you keep it for years? From week to week, you'd have to cook it again. When you reuse it, you must bring it back to a full boil. After cooking with it, I'll boil it, then store it. Let it cool down, then store it. Next time, bring it to a full boil again, then store it. Then it won't get moldy. Also, when you reuse it, you'll want to add more light soy sauce, as well as the other seasonings. The chicken will have absorbed the flavor. Next time, you would need to add more light soy sauce to make it flavorful enough. Heat off. To see if the chicken is cooked through, take a chopstick, poke it through the thickest part of the meat, which is right here, see? and if the liquid that comes out isn't red, it's cooked. If the liquid is red, it's not done cooking. It's cooked. All right, let's take the chicken out. Now we can plate all of the drumsticks and of course, some sauce to serve alongside them. Friends, our Soy Sauce Chicken Drumsticks are complete! I hope you all enjoy it! Hong Doy, Mui Mui, come eat chicken drumsticks! Yeah! Wow! Wow, Hong Doy! You tell YouTube what you want them to know. Be safe, everyone! Goodbye! Thank you for watching! Goodbye! Thank you for watching!
