Three Cup Chicken

When I was working in the electronics industry in China years ago, many of my suppliers were from Taiwan. At lunch time we’d take a walk across the massive industrial campus to the company’s in-house cafeteria and settle in for meetings over a meal. Invariably, one of the dishes we ordered was their amazing San Bei Ji - three cup chicken. While there are probably a million ways to make this, here’s one way to enjoy this classic dish at home. You can add more or less pepper, depending on your mood or taste. The dish we were served in Shanghai looked more like a mound of glistening cayenne peppers than chicken at first glance, but the peppers were more show than heat.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs chicken thighs – skin on (bone in or boneless – your choice)

2 heads of garlic, about 25 cloves - peeled and chopped coarse

1t grated fresh ginger

5 scallions cut into 1” pieces (or substitute a sliced shallot)

½ t cayenne pepper flakes or a couple whole dried cayenne peppers (optional)

3 T Sesame oil

¼ cup Moromi Shoyu

¼ cup rice wine

1.5 T brown or unrefined sugar

Preparation:

Cut up chicken into bite sized pieces. If using bone-in chicken, it can be prepared by simply chopping into bite sized pieces with a cleaver leaving the bone-in to add flavor.

 Heat 2 T of the sesame oil in a wok on high heat until shimmering and add the garlic, pepper or pepper flakes and quickly stir fry until aromatic and the garlic just begins to brown but not burn. About 1 minute. Move aside and add the other T of sesame oil and then stir fry the chicken on high heat for about 5 minutes. Add in the Ginger, brown sugar, shoyu, rice wine, and scallions and stir into the garlic. Continue stirring over high heat until for another 3 minutes.

Serve over white rice