Thursday, June 15, 2006

Sam Pui Kai ~ 3-cup chicken

The traditional Sam Pui Kai {three cups chicken} uses equal amount of sesame oil, soy sauce and wine. When coxiella of kc cooked a healthier version of sam pui kai which she adapted from Amy Beh @kuali, I jumped at the chance to try it. My whole kitchen smelled wonderful when cooking this dish.

Sam Pui Kai
Ingredients
1 kg chicken, chopped into fairly large pieces
1 Tbsp onion oil
1 Tbsp premium light soy sauce

50 ml sesame oil
1 Tbsp garlic, coarsely chopped
5cm piece ginger, sliced
5–6 stalks spring onions, cut into 4cm lengths
2 fresh red chillies (deseeded)


Seasoning
1 Tbsp dark soya sauce
3-4 Tbsp premium light soy sauce
100ml Shao Hsing Hua Tiau wine
1 Tbsp sugar or to taste
½ tsp salt or to taste

Method
1. Marinate chicken with onion oil and 1 tbsp soy sauce for at a few hours.

2. Fry garlic, ginger, half portion of spring onion and chillies in sesame oil till fragrant. Add chicken and fry for another 1–2 minutes. Pour in seasoning ingredients except salt. Cook over medium low heat until it comes to a boil.

3. Reduce the heat and simmer covered for 30 mins stirring occasionally. Add 50ml water if gravy dries up too quickly.

4. When the gravy has reduced, add the rest of the spring onions. Season with salt.


Note
This is the soy sauce I used. Even though I did not add salt and used only 4 tbsp of soy with the seasoning, my dish was quite salty. Different brands of soy sauce have different level of salt, please adjust accordingly






Recipe : coxiella @kitchencaper (adapted)

7 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Sinner
Could I ask you what is onion oil? I can't seem to find it in the supermarket. And item 3 refers to premium light or dark soya sauce?

Sinner said...

Jan,
Onion oil is homemade. You won't be able to buy it from the supermarket. It is oil leftover from frying crispy onions. You can use ordinary oil but the dish taste nicer with onion oil. The 3rd item is premium light soy sauce.
I have edited some of the ingredients to include some links.

Anonymous said...

this dish is just great ! taste like 1 of those confinement aromatic dishes with lots of ginger. Does your gravy has a layer of oil on top? Mine do. And when I fry my small onions, they turn dark brown very fast within 2 mins so I would need to control the fire carefully next time. Tks dear for a wonderfull meal!

Sinner said...

Jan,
Glad you like the dish.
To reduce that layer of oil, remove the chicken skin and as much fat as possible from the chicken before cooking.
Thanks for the feedback.

Unknown said...

Traditional Taiwan style 3 cup-chicken requires only freerange chicken, sesame oil, whole garlic cloves, lots of ginger, chinese cooking wine, soya sauce, sugar and lastly but most importantly thai basil. Thai basil is added to the last moment and given a quick stir to release its fragrance. Sooo yummy!
Give it a try and see if u like it that way :)

Tricia said...

Hi there,

Long time no chat. I just made this for my family ... it's sitting on the stove getting the flavour infuse! Can't wait till tomorrow to eat it!

Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Sinner said...

Hi Tricia,

I was sitting here thinking about what to cook for dinner tomorrow. Guess what.....3 cup chicken it will be ! lol

Enjoy your dinner tomorrow !

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