Actually it’s a bit hard to define “authentic” when it comes to Chinese food, because they have the same principle as Africans when it comes to cooking: just put everything in and adjust to taste. None of this measuring left and right stuff. The theory is that Taiwanese Three Cup Chicken is called “Three Cup” because it takes a cup each of rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil, but in practice how much to add of each is up to you.
The recipe I sort-of followed, sort-of was inspired by is Bob’s Your Uncle’s version:
Bob’s Your Uncle is a Cantonese cooking channel I used to watch to listen to Cantonese and learn simple recipes. Content warning: he’s a bit vulgar in some of his videos. I say “used to watch” because for the past year or two he’s just been posting cruise ship reviews and travel videos, which aren’t really my thing. But his older videos are good for a watch and most of the food looks easy to make.
Enough with the intro, let’s get down to cooking! Except… it’s been over a year since I made this recipe, so I’ve forgotten all the precise proportions I used. Wait, I shouldn’t lie. I didn’t use any proportions. I just used whatever I had in the house:
For example, most recipes call for Thai basil or any other basil, but I don’t have any basil so… I substituted our local herb known as “kowɛ.” It’s a variety of mint but hey, it’s green and it’s leafy just like basil so… yeah. Also I only had a sprig instead of the massive quantities used in the recipe so that’s another change. In the video Bob also finished up by cooking everything in a clay pot, but I don’t have a clay pot so my little skillet had to do. African cooking man, just throw it all in.
Ingredients I used: Chicken thighs, soy sauce, mint (kowɛ), oyster sauce, onions, ginger, garlic, pepper, sesame oil, rice wine, green onions (I happened to have some on hand so why not?), jerk sauce (ditto), a little mirin (ditto). BTW you can find all the stranger ingredients like oyster sauce and sesame oil at a Chinese grocery store like Great Wall Supermarket at Danquah Circle or Jiahua Agricultural somewhere in Osu, I forget where.
Process: I marinated the chicken thighs in a bit of soy sauce and oyster sauce for about an hour before cooking.
- Brown the chicken in a little oil (if you marinate it like I did, it will already be brown, but fry it up for extra flavor anyway)
- Take out the chicken and set it aside on a plate
- Add sesame oil to the pan and fry the sliced ginger and garlic gloves for a minute or two, until fragrant
- Add the sliced onions and fry briefly, then add all the chicken back in.
5. Time to season to taste with the extra soy sauce, oyster sauce, jerk sauce, mirin (many recipes call for rock sugar, but mirin is a sweet Japanese condiment so it’ll do), rice wine (optional IMO if you can’t take alcohol) the leftover marinade, anything else you can throw in.
6. Once you’re happy with the taste, toss in the fresh herbs like kowɛ and stir them in, then lower the heat, cover the pan and cook it for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. You can add a tiny bit of stock or water if it’s too dry, especially if you skip the rice wine.
7. Taste, adjust final seasoning and serve on a bed of hot, freshly-cooked rice.
It’s really easy to make, TBH with minimal chopping as long as you have the ingredients already on hand.
The only draw back is that the color is a bit dark, so for extra attractiveness serve some greens or salad on the side. I haven’t tried this with substitutes like beef, pork or tofu, but the basic seasoning should work with any other protein. Give it a try and enjoy!