Sweetened soy sauce flavored with star anise and ginger makes an excellent braising sauce for chicken. This sauce is a perfect blend of salty, sweet, and aromatic. Soy sauce chicken was a regular in my mom’s repertoire. While it’s a common item at restaurants, dim sum parlors, and take-out counters, home-made soy sauce chicken will taste better than any of the store-bought versions. The same sauce can be used for a whole chicken. The quantities in this recipe are optimized for wings.
The blanching step is critical. Blanching, followed by shocking in ice water, produces the highly desirable texture that the Chinese call “smooth”.
Curious note: This dish is also known as Swiss Sauce Chicken Wings (瑞士雞翼). This name is a mystery because there’s nothing Swiss about this recipe. Perhaps a mispronunciation resulted in “sweet sauce” morphing into “Swiss sauce”.
- 1 pound (450 g) chicken wings
- 1 quart (500 ml) water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 scallions
- 1 piece ginger the size of a large coin
- 2 tablespoons dark soy
- 2 tablespoons light soy
- 1 tablespoon Shaoxing rice wine
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup (62 ml) water
- ⅓ bar brown sugar, or 1 to 2 tablespoons brown sugar or raw sugar *
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger
- 1 star anise
- 1 scallion, coarsely chopped
- You can use either wingettes (the middle segment) or whole wings. If using the latter, separate the segments and discard the tips (or save for broth).
- Place blanching ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Add the wings and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Drain the wings in a colander, then plunge them into a bowl of ice water.
- While the wings are cooling, prepare the braising sauce by combining all of the braising ingredients in a bowl.
- Heat the oil in a pan just large enough to accommodate the wings in a single layer. Stir fry the minced ginger for a few seconds, then add the braising sauce, brown sugar, coarsely chopped scallion, and star anise. When the sugar has dissolved, lay the wings in the pan in a single layer.
- Cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, turning the wings over every 5 minutes.
- Turn the heat off and let stand for 10 minutes.
- Transfer the wings to a serving dish, ladle some sauce over the wings, and garnish with the sliced scallion tops. This dish can be served hot or cold.
- - - - -
Revisions:
1. 9 Apr 2013 - added metric measurements
English name | Soy Sauce Chicken Wings Swiss Sauce Chicken Wings |
Chinese name | 豉油雞翼 瑞士雞翼 |
Cantonese (Jyutping) | si6 jau4 gai1 jik6 seoi6 si6 zap1 gai1 jik6 |