Cheap Dinner: Soy Braised Chicken

Lu ji tui, or soy sauce cooked chicken legs, is a bargain meal.

Posted at 5:14 PM
Why did the cook cross the supermarket aisle? To get to the chicken calling, "Cheap, cheap!"

One of my supermarkets was selling drumsticks this morning (and still is) for 89 cents a pound, so I had a great reason to make one of my favorite comfort foods, lu ji tui, or soy braised chicken legs. Not counting the braising liquid, the per-serving cost of the meat came to 52 cents per adult serving, and 26 cents per child. That's cheaper than a single fast food chicken nugget, plus tastier and lower in fat, too.

If you make soy sauce eggs and tofu (recipes below) with the leftover braising liquid, you can stretch out the meal into even more servings.

What I like about this dish is you basically dump everything into the pot and get a delicious result.
That's how my mother cooked this dish, and that's how I've been making it since I started cooking. Why mess with a good thing?
If you're a fan of oven braising, pressure cooking or slow cooking, by all means, try it your way and let me know how it turns out.

RECIPE
Soy Braised Chicken
Serves 6

INGREDIENTS
1 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 1/2 cups water
5 cloves garlic, smashed and paper (skins) discarded
5 scallions, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, grated, or 1-inch piece sliced into coins
1 to 2 Tablespoons brown sugar or honey
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice
1 stick cinnamon (optional)
2 whole star anise (optional)
a strip of orange peel without the white pith (optional)

3.75 pounds chicken drumsticks (my package had 13 drumsticks)

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine everything but the scallions and chicken in a 4-quart pot or saucepan. Add drumsticks and scatter scallions over the top.

If needed, add 1/4 cup extra soy sauce plus 1/4 cup extra water to nearly submerge chicken pieces.

2. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to very low setting, cover and simmer until very tender, about one and a half hours. The meat pulls easily off the bone.

Serve with steamed rice, a vegetable such as long beans or bok choy, and soy sauce eggs and tofu (optional, recipes below). Drizzle chicken and rice with some braising liquid.

You can also take 1 cup of the braising liquid and reduce it by half for a more intensely flavored, slightly thicker sauce.

NOTE: You can cool the braising liquid, skim chicken fat from the top and freeze the liquid to use another time.
To cook a smaller package of chicken legs (usually 5 drumsticks or 4 thighs), halve the rest of the recipe and use a 2- to 3-quart pot.

RECIPE

Soy Sauce Eggs

INGREDIENTS
braising liquid from soy braised chicken
6 soft boiled eggs with shell removed

DIRECTIONS
Place braising liquid and eggs in a small (2 to 3 quart) sauce pan.
Bring to boil over high heat, then reduce flame to medium low and simmer uncovered 15 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit 10 more minutes before serving, or let cool and store refrigerated in some braising liquid.

NOTE: If you want the flavor to penetrate more, you can prick the whites of the boiled eggs all over with the tines of a fork. Be aware that if you overdo it, the egg can fall apart.

RECIPE
Soy Sauce Braised Tofu

INGREDIENTS
braising liquid from soy braised chicken
1 block firm tofu (14 to 16 ounces)

DIRECTIONS
Cut tofu into 1/2-inch to 1-inch cubes and stir them into braising liquid from soy braised chicken. Bring to simmer and continue to braise for about 15 minutes or longer if desired.

NOTE: Soy sauce eggs and braised tofu can be cooked in the braising liquid together.

Chinese Pulled Pork Sliders, or Non-traditional Gua Bao

Pork shoulder makes a great substitute for belly in this sandwich.

Until I learned about the Momofuku eateries in Manhattan and eponymous cookbook this year, I hadn't realized that Chinese pork sandwiches, a popular menu item, were so appreciated here in the states.
Momofuku's creator, Korean American chef David Chang, apparently knows a good thing when he tastes it and has shared his discovery.

Of course in my case, he would be preaching to the converted. Yesterday I was craving some Taiwanese gua bao, made of pork belly, pickled greens, a little crushed sugared peanuts and steamed buns, but around here there aren't any restaurants making that kind of food, traditionally served streetside from a cart. I have no better luck even finding a simple slab of pork belly. My supermarket never, I mean NEVER, carries slabs — just tiny packages of thin-sliced belly. But yesterday while I was picking up a few groceries, the packages of pork shoulder, my go-to economy cut, caught my eye. Hmmmm ... I love Taiwanese pork belly buns. I love Southern pulled pork.

At that moment I decided that Southerners don't have to be the only ones to claim pulled pork as their birthright. I would do a Chinese pulled pork shoulder as the filling for my homemade gua bao. For the braising liquid, I would go with something similar to the one for my soy sauce chicken.

I didn't have the pickled greens on hand, either. Tradition already out the window, I decided the shiso greens would have to stand in for the picked greens, or suan cai. It was a good choice. The shiso gave the sandwich a note of herbal freshness contrasting with the rich salty sweetness of the braising sauce. I had some honey roasted peanuts that I planned to crush and sprinkle on the meat, but ... ahem ... I mumble ate mumble them ... something happened to them while the pork was braising.

For the bun, I didn't have time or a steamer available to make my own from scratch, so I pulled a package of man tou from the freezer. My gua bao ended up being something like a Chinese pulled pork slider. I managed to take a picture just before I finished off the last one.

Chinese Pulled Pork Sandwich Recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups low sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup red wine
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 shallot, chopped
3 scallions, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1-inch piece ginger root, cut into thin slices
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice

2 pound pork shoulder (aka butt roast)

DIRECTIONS
1. Combine all ingredients except pork in a medium saucepan. Stir sauce over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, then add the pork, turning to coat with sauce, and bring to simmer. Reduce heat to low, then cover and let simmer until pork is fall-from-the-bone tender, about 3 hours.

2. Allow to cool, covered, until pork can be handled.

3. Reserve one cup of braising liquid and bring it to a boil in pan until reduced to a thick, almost syrupy consistency. Meanwhile, pull pork meat apart and discard pieces of fat. Toss pulled pork with reduced sauce, and when ready, serve pork in a steamed bun (available in the freezer section of many Asian grocery stores), garnished with pickled greens or fresh greens, if you prefer.
If buns are unavailable, serve rice or noodles.

Ma Po Tofu

Last night, I was about to scrape the last bite out of my daughter's bowl and into my mouth when she shouted, "NO, NO, NO!"

Whoa. You'd have thought I was swiping the kid's precious ice cream, or her lovey, Yang Yang ("Lambie"). I was simply trying to help her clean up the dregs of her ma po tofu. I couldn't blame her. The recipe is really tasty, and she wanted that last spicy bite herself. But she's only 3 years old, which makes me secretly proud of the little chip off of mommy's block. Her brothers don't love the dish as much as she, but they will eat it without me tying them down and sticking a funnel in their mouths, which is quite an accomplishment when you have picky kids.

I can't remember a time when tofu wasn't on the menu when I was growing up. Tofu stir fried with ground meat in a soy, oyster sauce, garlic, ginger concoction. Or tofu cooked with hard-boiled eggs in the braising liquid from silky soy sauce chicken (or red cooked chicken, similar to Chairman Mao's supposedly favorite pork dish, hong shao rou). When my parents took us to a Chinese restaurant, occasionally we'd get ma po tofu, a spicy, irresistibly savory dish.

Oddly (to me), when I was telling a neighbor friend some years back about how much I liked bean curd, she made a face, wrinkled her nose and looked as though she were going to gag. About 20 years older than I, she'd grown up in a Sicilian-American family and made it her mission to introduce me to lamb, real "gravy" (I was surprised to learn it was a tomato sauce and not some brown, roux-thickened meat juice) and other Italian-American delights. In response, I used to tease her that if all Italians had been intimidated by Chinese food, they wouldn't have learned to make noodles. (No, I don't really think that's true.) If only I'd learned to make ma po tofu back then. She may have discovered how enjoyable and satisfying (for me, addicting) spicy bean curd can be.

The following recipe owes a huge debt to Jen Yu of UseRealButter.com. I checked out numerous recipes online, but her version is the one that used ingredients that were close to what I could easily get my hands on in central Illinois (unfortunately I haven't found sichuan, aka szechuan, pepper corns). She also includes bamboo shoots (bless her!), which are among my favorite foods, especially when thinly sliced and packed in chili oil. (In the batch pictured above, I used a small can of bamboo strips packed in water that I sliced crosswise. Just add more chili bean sauce or some hot chili oil if you want more heat.) I made some minor adjustments to her recipe based on what was in my kitchen and made sure it wasn't too spicy for my kids to eat. Another good recipe for those who want an authentic flavor is Fuchsia Dunlop's ma po tofu in her book "Land of Plenty." For a peek, take a look at Serious Eats.

Ma Po Tofu
Serves 4

1 Tablespoon peanut or canola oil
1/2 pound ground pork (or beef or turkey)
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup chopped scallion (white parts only, greens reserved for garnish)
1/2 cup chopped bamboo shoots (I used a small can of bamboo strips)
2 cups chicken or beef broth/stock
1 Tablespoon chili bean sauce (dou ban jiang)
1 Tablespoon black bean garlic sauce
1 rounded teaspoon fermented black beans (optional)
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon soy sauce (optional -- omit if broth is salty)
2 blocks tofu (about 24 to 28 ounces), cut into 3/4-inch to 1-inch cubes
2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed into 1/4 cup water (slurry)

DIRECTIONS
1. Place 1 Tablespoon peanut oil in a wok or a deep 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat and stir-fry ground meat just until it is no longer pink.
2. Add chopped scallion whites and grated ginger, and saute with meat about 30 seconds.
3. Lower heat to medium, add remaining ingredients except the cornstarch mixture, and stir until combined. Allow to simmer 10 minutes and add slurry. When sauce thickens, cover ma po tofu and remove from heat.

Serving suggestions: Ladle over white rice, and serve with cooked napa cabbage.

Variation: Stir in 1/2 to 1 cup frozen petite peas at the end.
If you want a meat-free dish, you could use textured soy protein in place of the ground pork (or beef or turkey).

Sweet (and sour) memory

Born half Chinese and half German-American, and reared in a New York City suburb densely populated by Italian-Americans,  my younger sister and I were obligated to like pork. On our round woodish-laminate dinner table, we often found pork schnitzel (breaded cutlets), bacon, baked ham, Italian pork sausage, Black Forest ham sandwiches, Chinese pork sausage (la chang), ro sung (fried finely-shredded seasoned pork), prosciutto, Chinese ribs, bratwurst …

So on Saturdays when my parents took me and mei to a little Chinese restaurant crammed into a shopping strip in Emerson, NJ, it was only natural that I’d ask for sweet and sour pork. Sometimes I'd want egg foo young or a pu pu platter. Occasionally they'd indulge me, but my made-in-Taiwan mother didn’t herself care for those American favorites. (She also cruelly denied me fluffernutter sandwiches, Cap'N Crunch cereal and a host -- or should I say Hostess -- of other childhood necessities.)

Most times I'd be left scorning the hot tea poured into my water glass and the crunchy duck or ma po tofu on my plate. At the end of the meal, after my dad separated the check from the fortune cookies and orange wedges, I'd peel myself from the reddish-brown genuine Naugahyde-covered banquette and vow that when I grew up I would eat whatever I wanted. (Then when I grew up, what would I order but crunchy duck and ma po tofu...)

Still, in recent years, I’ve been craving and learning to cook some of my old Chinese-American restaurant favorites. But preparing regular sweet and sour pork takes more time than I usually have.

In this dish, using whole cutlets saves me from having to cut a gajillion bite size pieces, then dip ALL of them to get the special coating on every piece, then deep fry the multitude. And pan frying the chops in a skillet cuts down on the cooking oil (and helps reduce the amount of grease that pops and splatters all over the stove and floor).

The list of ingredients looks long, but throw together the sauce ahead of time. Then later, prep the other ingredients, or if you're really short on time, buy bagged pre-cut fresh or frozen vegetables.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 Tablespoons ketchup
2 teaspoons plum sauce
2 teaspoons oyster sauce
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce or red pepper flakes (optional)

PREPARATION
1. Combine all ingredients in a cup. Set aside.


Easy Sweet and Sour Pork*
Serves 4

4 pork cutlets or thin loin chops, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper (or marinated with 2 teaspoons soy sauce and 1 teaspoon rice wine or cooking sherry)

1/4 cup flour mixed with
1/4 cup cornstarch

canola oil or peanut oil (enough to fry chops)


1 red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces**
1 green or orange bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1-inch piece ginger, grated
1 8-ounce can pineapple tidbits
5 scallions, cut into 1 inch pieces (reserving some of the green portion to garnish if desired)

1 recipe sweet and sour sauce
1 Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in
1/4 cup cold water

PREPARATION

1. Dredge chops in flour-cornstarch mixture.

2. Pour enough oil to cover bottom of a hot skillet.

3. Fry both sides of cutlets in skillet until golden brown, and transfer to a plate in a 275 degree F oven.

4. Remove all but 1 tablespoon of oil from pan. Cook peppers and onions over medium flame to desired degree of tenderness and add scallions, smashed garlic and ginger. Cook another minute. Mix in pineapple chunks and sauce. Remove from heat.

5. When ready to serve, return pan to heat, add cornstarch dissolved in water and let thicken. Serve with chops and rice.

Notes:
* If you don't eat pork, use chicken.

** Once cooking starts, there is little time for mixing or slicing, so prepare sauce and vegetables ahead of time. I make the sauce and slice the vegetables early in the day or even a day before cooking this for dinner.

*** You could coat cutlets or chops in breadcrumbs or panko bits or a tempura batter if you prefer.