Recipe Notes: Three Cup Chicken

28 May 2018

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, March 2018.

While I enjoy many Chinese dishes, Diane is not found of Chinese food in general. Nonetheless this chicken dish from a recent edition of Cook's Illustrated seemed to be worth trying. It didn't include many unusual ingredients, those that we might purchase but never use again, I do tend to stay away from recipes that do. We do like to try new things, within reason, and this looked like a possible winner.

To start, a marinade was made with soy sauce, dry sherry, and sugar. Boneless, skinless chicken thighs that had been trimmed and cut into 2" pieces were added. (Oddly, for a Test Kitchen recipe, no time was specified in the recipe for how long the chicken should be in the marinade.) Setting the chicken aside, sliced ginger and garlic plus red pepper flakes were cooked in a skillet over low heat in sesame oil.  When they were golden, the chicken and marinade were added and simmered for about 10 minutes. Slices of scallion whites were added and the mixture cooked until the chicken reached 200°. A cornstarch slurry was used to thicken the sauce. Finally, Thai basil, toasted sesame oil, and sliced scallion greens were added. Including prep it took 100 minutes to fix this dish.

We were disappointed with the result. The heat from the red pepper flakes and ginger slices was too strong, overpowering the other flavors in the dish. Thus we were not really able to appreciate the Thai basil, which smelled wonderful before being added to the dish, and other ingredients. We had used only half of the amount of red pepper flakes specified in the recipe, but the dish was still too spicy with much of the heat coming from the sliced ginger. On the plus side, the chicken itself was well cooked, juicy and tender. The recipe in the magazine included two sidebars: a really good technique for peeling ginger using a simple teaspoon—worked like a charm—and a nice recipe for "Chinese restaurant-style rice". We will not be making Three Cup Chicken again, which is okay, it is good to try new things from time to time as sometimes you make a wonderful discovery, just not this time.