This is a second soy sauce chicken recipe I tried. The first one boils chicken in hot water first, while this one directly cook chicken in sauce, needs some time to pour sauce over skin to color and the chicken is much more tender.
QUICK TAKEAWAYS
- brown chicken skin is similar reason as pouring boiling water on chicken to set the skin, make it chewy and not broken later in other cooking steps
- pouring sauce over chicken to color the skin could be labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it is for the better flavor and presentation!
- wait till whole / half chicken cools down before cutting could prevent chicken breaking apart
RECIPE
- whole chicken
- ginger slices
- scallion slices
- garlic cloves
- rock candies
- Sauce:
- 1/2 bowl of soy sauce
- 1/4 bowl of dark soy sauce
- 1/4 bowl cooking wine
- 1 bowl of water
STEP 1: slice ginger, scallion, smash garlic cloves; in a bowl mix the liquid sauces
STEP 2: heat up pan, add oil and stir fry ginger, scallion, garlic
STEP 3: put half or whole chicken in pan and fry till skin is golden, flip to the other side and also golden that side.
- This step is to set / “stabilize” the skin with high heat, so it becomes chewy instead of too soft later, same rational as using boiling water to set “white cut chicken” skin before marinating
STEP 4: pour sauce mix in pan, boil and bring down to low heat when you only see small bubbles and sauce not boiling. The sauce should be around 1/2 height of chicken now
STEP 5: for half chicken, the first 10-15mins, for whole chicken, the first 15-20mins, cook one side, while using spatula / big spoon to pour the sauce over chicken skin to darken the color
before 
after
STEP 6: flip gently not breaking the skin, use the same way to cook the other side, continue pouring sauce over skin
before 
after
STEP 7: now the sauce should break down quite a lot; if there is no blood coming out of chicken meat when poking through chicken thigh, turn up the heat till sauce further boils down, reduces and becomes thick; at the same time, pour sauce over skin to continue color the skin
- If this step last more than 5mins, remove chicken out first and continue to boil the sauce down, otherwise chicken could be overcooked
bubble size the shape is different from start 
sauce gets thickened 
STEP 8: chill chicken till it is almost room temp, so it will be easier to cut and not break apart; slice chicken!
STEP 9: pour the reduced sauce over chicken
READY TO SERVE!!
