Cold (?) Chinese Boiled Chicken

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
I've meaning to post about things for a looong time!

Ok, so only a week has gone by since my last post, but in that time I've made some yummy stuff that I want to share....and I've been coming up with reasons not to post yet! (like bad pictures, or
lack of a written recipe, or recipes that aren't quite ready to be shared yet and need some more touching up).

However, there is no excuse for the chicken I made last night - some Cold Chinese Boiled Chicken. Question mark on the Cold part, haha (you'll see why later).
I got passable pictures of the meal, plus I have what I did all memorized to type up, so here goes!...


My mom had made something like this that I remembered as being RIDICULOUSLY good, so I searched around for something like it (she didn't remember where she got the recipe...actually, she didn't remember making it!) - it had to be a recipe for a whole chicken being boiled in a seasoned water type of thing, preferably with soy sauce in the mix and DEFINITELY with five spice powder in there! Luckily, I came across this recipe that seemed to be a lot like what I remembered, so I made it...with some alterations, of course =)

DELICIOUS <3


Five-Spice Chinese Boiled Chicken
1 small chicken
1 cup of soy sauce
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 tsp (more or less according to taste) 5-spice powder
sliced ginger (if you like, however much you like)
1 large cut up onion
1 large cut up carrot
1 scallion (garnish)

1 - Take the skin off of the chicken, and remove as much fat as you can from it (but don't worry about that too much...it's just to avoid a greasy dish). Rinse it under running water, and plop it into a pot large enough to hold it plus enough liquid to completely cover it, with room to let it boil.

2 - Mix together the soy sauce, sugar, and 5 spice powder, stirring to dissolve the sugar a bit. Pour over the chicken, and add enough water to completely cover it.

3 - Bring to a boil on whatever level of heat you want (I almost always cook on high heat, I'm impatient and I don't value slow cooking at all >_<). 4 - Meanwhile, chop up the onion into sizeable chunks, and cut the carrot into whatever size pieces you want. Throw them into the pot as well. 5 - Boil the chicken for about a half hour (adding water as necessary to keep the chicken covered), or until it's done (you can cut into it and see if it is fully cooked, they cook pretty quickly). Turn off the heat, and take the chicken out. Cut it up, and return it to the pan (I just separated it - legs, breasts, etc). Cover the pan, and let it sit. Let it sit until cooled down.



Now, this is where you can take this recipe in a couple of different directions:

Direction 1: Drain the juice from the chicken and veggies (reserve a bit), put onto a serving platter, decorate with the scallions, and serve with some rice and a veggie of your choice, if you want. It can be warmed up so it's hot, or served at room temperature.

Direction 2: Chill the chicken, in the liquid, in the refrigerator, until cold - but preferably, overnight or something. It only gets better with time! This also gives you a chance to scoop any yucky fat off the top. Drain the juice, and serve the chicken cold with rice and a veggie, or whatever you want. It's pretty versatile.



Direction 3: Follow either Direction 1 or Direction 2, but only pull the chicken out, leaving the liquid and the veggies in the pot. After soaking some pad thai noodles (flat rice noodles) for about 20-30 minutes in cold water, heat up the liquid from the chicken and put the noodles in. Boil for about 5 minutes, until the noodles seem done. Drain all of the juice from the noodles, which gives you noodles with the veggies in it and the yummy flavor from the sauce!! Serve with the chicken and a veggie of your choice.




Direction 4: Follow either Direction 1 or Direction 2, but cut up the chicken and use in an asian wrap - like in a rice noodle wrapper, with some hoisin sauce and raw cabbage/carrots, or whatever floats your boat!

Direction 5: Forget about all of this draining stuff! Just serve this as a delicious soup (you may want to still chill it to further flavor the chicken, but mostly so you can scoop any fat off of the top), and maybe even throw those noodles in as part of the soup. YUM! Feel free to add any more veggies to it, too, for a complete meal =)

This chicken and the sauce have suchhhh an addictive flavor, I love it! And as you can see from all of the "Directions" I wrote down that you could follow, it's really very versatile.

You could probably even make this vegetarian, by cooking some firm tofu and veggies in the sauce instead of the chicken! I might try that one night =D

You could ALSO probably sub any type chicken you have on hand, if you don't have a whole one, as well. IDK, have fun with it!

I really hope that you try this, and enjoy!!! Although I wrote a TON about this, it's extremelyyyyyyy simple to make.

(And I hope you can see now why I put the question mark next to "Cold"!!!)
xD