Chinese Steamed Chicken with Ginger Scallion Sauce
This steamed chicken is super juicy and tender—it just melts in your mouth! The ginger scallion sauce is so flavorful and fragrant, the flavor will remind you of your Chinese parents' cooking!
Servings: 1
Calories: 1709kcal
Ingredients
- 1 pound chicken drumstick and thigh
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon shaoxing cooking wine or sake (optional)
- 1 green onion
- 2 inch ginger sliced
- 4 shiitake mushrooms
- 1 jujube (optional)
- goji berries handful (optional)
Ginger scallion sauce:
- 2 inch ginger grated
- 2 green onions
- ½ cup neutral oil
- ½ teaspoon salt
- pinch sugar
- pinch chicken bouillon or msg (optional)
Instructions
- Add salt and shaoxing cooking wine to your chicken. Place on a plate to steam.
- Heat pot with water on high heat. Place steam rack inside of the water. When boiling, place the shiitake mushrooms, jujube and goji berries around the chicken on the plate, then add the plate to the rack. Steam for 30 minutes and turn off heat. Then, let chicken rest in the pot for 10 more minutes.
- While the chicken is cooking, make ginger scallion sauce. Peel and grate ginger. Slice green onions. Place green onions and ginger in a heat resistant bowl with ½ teaspoon salt, pinch of sugar and pinch of chicken bouillon (optional).
- Heat pot to high heat. Add ½ cup of oil to pot and heat for 3-4 minutes. Test if the oil is hot enough by adding one small slice of green onion. Once it sizzles, add all the hot oil to the bowl. Mix together and set aside.
- Take the chicken out of the pot. You will see lots of juices, add some of that juice in the ginger scallion sauce. Shred your chicken or eat as a whole with lots of sauce on top.
Video
Notes
Expert Tips
- Make sure your oil is hot (you see smoke from your pan or pot) when you pour on top of the ginger and green onion sauce. This method cooks down the green onions so it doesn’t have that raw ‘spicy’ taste which you usually get from raw onions.
- After you steam your chicken, don’t open the lid and let the chicken finish cooking in the residual heat (rest for roughly 10 minutes). The chicken ends up soaking up the extra juices.
- Salt the chicken ahead of time. Lightly salting the chicken and letting it sit for 15–30 minutes before steaming helps season it throughout and enhances the overall flavor.