Soy sauce chicken is a comfort food. There are a lot of varieties. My version of the Hong Kong style soy sauce chicken has less soy sauce. I used chicken legs instead of a whole chicken, it saves time and soy sauce.
Ingredients
- 3 chicken legs
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 shallots
- 2 gloves garlic
- 2 slices ginger
- 1 scallion
- 2 bay leaves
- 4 licorice
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 black cardamom
- 1 tbsp anise
- 2 star anise
- 1 cup light soy sauce
- 1 cup dark sauce sauce
- 500 ml water
- 3 tbsp sugar or rock sugar
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 pinch of salt
Wash the chicken legs. Blanch it for 1-2 minutes in boiling water with some salt. Rinse it with some cold or ice water and dry well with some kitchen towel.
Preparing the soy sauce. Take a pan large enough to fit the chicken legs. Chop the shallots, garlic in big chunks. The scallion you can tide a knot. Put the vegetable oil in the pan and stir fry the shallots, garlic, ginger and scallions. Stir fry till fragrant.
Add the rest of the spices, soy sauces, sugar and water. Let it boil for 5 minutes before you add the chicken. First boil the chicken on high heat for 5 minutes and let it simmer on low heat for 10 minutes and turn off the heat. Let the chicken rest for 15 minutes.
Optional is to add 2 tbsp Mei Kuei Lu (Rose water wine) into the marinade.
Make sure the chicken is covered with the soy sauce.
Take the chicken out and let it rest for another 5 minutes before you cut is. Serve it with some rice, vegetables and pour extra sauce over the chicken after you have chopped it in pieces.
LaiKwanKitchen 
LaiKwanKitchen
I bought a bag assorted spice, in which you will find almost all the spices that I have used. Except the bay leaves. The spices can be used for other dishes, like beef stew with daikon.
The soy sauce marinade you can re-use. Pour the sauce through a sieve and let it cool down and put it in a zipper bag and freeze it. By re-using the marinade, the taste of the marinade will be better. You can always add extra sugar, soy sauce or water. Besides chicken, you can add tofu, boiled eggs and duck in the marinade. There are even soy sauces which have been re-used for 100 years.