Soy Sauce Chicken 卤鸡

I bought a free range chicken on the weekend, and planned to cook the chicken whole. Hubs and the girls aren't a great fan of steam chicken, so I thought I'll try to make soy sauce chicken (卤鸡) instead.

I adapted the recipe from Rasa Malaysia, changing it based on what I have in the kitchen, and what I think would suit our taste more.

♥Recipe for Soy Sauce Chicken 卤鸡♥
Adapted from Rasa Malaysia.

You'll need :

For the ginger dipping sauce
2 inch ginger
2 cloves of garlic
sugar and salt to taste
1tsb oil

For the chicken
1 whole chicken 600g ~ 800g (my chicken was 600g, but I think I have enough sauce to cook a bigger chicken)
2-inch ginger (skin peeled and lightly pounded)
3 whole garlic (wash and lightly pounded)
1 stalk spring onion
2 cinnamon stick
1 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1 tbs Chinese wine
3 dashes white pepper powder
1/4 tsp of five spice powder
120g rock sugar
4 cups water

Method:

For the dipping sauce
1) Skin ginger and garlic
2) Blend or pound ginger and half of the garlic until fine, place in a heat prove bowl
3) Finely chop the other half of garlic
4) Heat oil in small pan and fry the finely chop garlic until fragrant
5) Pour heated garlic oil over blended ginger and garlic, add salt (~ 1/2 tsp) and sugar (~ 2tsp) according to taste, stir mixture until well combined

For the chicken
1) Clean the chicken and pat dry
2) Add all ingredients (except the chicken) into a deep pot and bring it to boil on high heat for 15 minutes.
3) Add the chicken into the pot
4) and boil over high heat for about 10 minutes.
5) Lower the heat to simmer for about 30 minutes.
6) Turn off the heat and let the chicken steeped in the soy sauce mixture for an hour to soak in the flavor
7) Unless your pot is deep enough for the sauce to cover the chicken entirely, turn the chicken during 4), 5) & 6) a couple of times so that the soy sauce will coat the chicken evenly.
8 ) Dish out the chicken and chop into pieces and serve with the dipping sauce as well as the thick soy gravy separately.

The chicken has a nice brown sheen and was tasty and fragrant.

Note : For the left over sauce, you can keep it and make soy sauce egg (滷蛋) or soy sauce tofu (滷豆腐). i.e. Simmer the shelled hard boiled egg and tofu (choose the hard tofu) in the sauce for 15mins, and serve. The sauce becomes thicker and saltier with each simmering, so use just take enough to make whatever you wanted, and (do not simmer and) keep the rest for future use.