Three Cup Chicken Recipe (Taiwanese Style)

After moving to Australia, I’ve been very lucky to have many chances to try some Taiwanese foods because many Taiwanese run their gorgeous restaurants here. Nearly all the Taiwanese restaurants would have one of their famous dishes called “Three Cup Chicken” (三杯雞) on their menus. At first, the name of the dish caught my sight and aroused my curiosity. “Three cups”? Ha, interesting! What is the three cups sauce? Many of my Taiwanese friends know this dish of course. Again, I was lucky enough to get the recipe and tried it at home.

“Three cup sauce” actually includes rice wine, sesame oil and soy sauce in the proportion of 1:1:1 Adding basil into the stewed chicken is a must and make this dish very unique in taste and smell. The sauce is perfectly balanced and the basil makes the chicken irresistible. Similar to what people say, “Love at first sight”, yet I fell in “love at first taste”.

Ingredients:

fresh chicken (whole or half) 650 gm
1 cup fresh Taiwanese basil (九層塔)
1 shallot, sliced
5 braids of garlic, chopped
1 ginger, sliced or smashed

Sauce Ingredients:

2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons rock sugar, chopped smaller
2 tablespoons cooking rice wine
2 teaspoons sesame oil
3/4 cup water

Method:

1. Rinse and drain chicken, then cut into chunks.

2. Heat 2 tablespoon oil to sauté ginger, garlic and shallots until fragrant. Add in chicken chunks and continue to sauté. When the chicken turns white in color, pour in the sauce ingredients and cook on high heat, bring it to boil. Cover with a lid, lower heat. Cook ingredients for about 30 to 40 minutes till tender and done.

3. When sauce begins to thicken, turn off the heat and add basil. Stir well. Dish up to serve.