Simple Savory Soy-Ginger Garlic Chicken

As always, when I get a chance to spend time with my buddy Paulette, I get new and wonderful ideas from her kitchen. I absolutely took liberties with the recipe she served us, but since ours is a true love 😉 I know she’ll forgive me. The basic here is a marinade of chicken breast, skinned and boned (she used skinless boneless thighs) but I wanted something that would cook literally in minutes and sorta played fast and loose here to make it simpler. It’s a quick, savory recipe with a rich, umami-packed reduction sauce, and it is perfect served hot over rice or cold over fresh shredded lettuce with cherry tomatoes. It’s simple, aromatic, and flavorful and you are getting serious bang for your buck with relatively minimal effort. Even better, it can double as a starter course OR a main. Not bad, eh?

So, gather your ingredients

Note the little bowl above? It contains peeled chopped ginger. A nifty little tip for ginger, use a spoon (yup yup) to scrape off the peel, works a treat. Then simply slice slices off the knob and cut little sticks out of it. It’s flavoring the marinade but need not be grated. K. You have a choice. Place all the marinade ingredients, the soy sauce, white wine, garlic, ginger, brown sugar and honey in a bowl or in a ziplock bag. Then submerge the chicken breasts in the marinade.

Pop the chicken in the bowl (covered) into the fridge and let sit at least an hour, two is even better. Then take it out and take out a skillet, non-stick is best and heat the oil in the pan.

Take only the number of chicken breast that will easily fit in the pan (don’t overcrowd them) and cook about 2-3 minutes on each side. (This is for thin or pounded breasts. It they are thicker, it can take 5 minutes per side. Check one breast by cutting through to gauge timing. Since you will be slicing the breasts anyway, this is no big).

Now DO NOT!!! throw out your marinade. Once all the chicken is cooked and placed in a pan or container on the side, pour the remaining marinade into the pan and you will bring it to the boil

and lower it and cook on medium (it should bubble but not ferociously) for about five minutes until it cooks down somewhat.

Then pour it over the cooked chicken in the pan/container. You can serve it right away with Oven Baked Rice spooning the marinade over the chicken and rice, or best served (imho) sliced to show the lovely contrast of dark outer part of chicken and white inner chicken on shredded lettuce with cherry tomato for garnish which is how Paulette (sorta) served it.

Simple Savory Soy-Ginger Garlic Chicken

6-8 boneless thinly sliced skinless boneless chicken breast – for thicker chicken breast, cook about 5 minutes per side

For the marinade:

1/3 cup (75 ml) soy sauce

2 teaspoons chopped garlic

2 teaspoons chopped ginger

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

2-3 teaspoons honey

3 tablespoons white wine

2 tablespoons oil

Directions:

Place all marinade items in a bowl and stir well. Submerge chicken breast in marinade (chicken gives up some liquid of its own and it will be covered, no worries). Marinate chicken at least half an hour preferably an hour-2 hours covered in the fridge. Take a skillet and heat the oil. Remove the chicken from the fridge and take out of the marinade BUT DO NOT THROW IT OUT!!!! You will boil it afterwards and use as a sauce. Cook the chicken breast 2-3 minutes on each side (for thicker chicken breasts it will take longer, maybe five minutes per side) but don’t crowd the pan. Cut one cooked one in half to make sure it’s done and to gauge timing. No worries, since you will be serving them sliced). When all is are done place in a baking pan or container and set aside. Pour the marinade into the pan and bring to the boil, then lower and cook on medium for 5 minutes (it should bubble gently). It will reduce somewhat. Then pour over chicken in pan/container. Serve sliced hot over rice or even better serve cold sliced over shredded lettuce with cherry tomatoes for garnish. Spoon hot marinade over rice or cold marinade over lettuce.