shoyu chicken

today we have a snow day!!!  yay!!! i love snow days and because we live in the dc area we actually get a fair amount of snow days/late openings considering we don’t get all that much snow.  the district just is a bit over cautious and tends to freak out even with a couple inches of snow.  but i’m certainly not one to complain.

because now i have some extra time to write a blog post and share with you a recipe for one of my favorite local (hawaii) foods – shoyu chicken.  kind of funny writing about food from a nice sunny warm place since it’s cold and snowing here, but it’s actually the perfect comfort food, so rain or shine this is a great dish to make for you and your family.

shoyu is soy sauce in japanese and in hawaii people frequently refer to soy sauce as shoyu.  so pretty straightforward, this chicken is cooked in a soy sauce or shoyu based sauce – it’s almost like a teriyaki sauce, made with shoyu, brown sugar, ginger, garlic, and a touch of rice vinegar.  the chicken thighs (or breast – though i prefer thighs because they have less of a tendency to dry out) are cooked in a slow cooker in this lovely sauce for a few hours.  once the chicken is done, the sauce is slightly thickened with some cornstarch and the chicken is ready to serve is a bowl of steaming rice.  my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

i hope you give this simple, savory recipe a try and get a taste of hawaii.  enjoy!

first, mix all of the sauce ingredients in a medium bowl – it’s just shoyu, brown sugar, minced garlic, grated fresh ginger, and rice vinegar.

then place the boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the bowl of your slow cooker/crockpot.  you could also chicken thighs that still have the bone in and/or skin on it.  whatever you prefer.  chicken breast may work, but i have found it to get too dry.

pour the sauce over the chicken.

there you go…

but now you need to mix the sauce and the chicken to make sure that each piece of chicken is covered in sauce.  this will ensure all of the chicken will absorb the flavor of the sauce.

now cook the chicken on low for 4-5 hours  or on high for 2-2 1/2 hours.

take the chicken out of the pot and slice each piece.

the sauce will have a bit of fat in it, especially if you use chicken thighs.  so carefully skim off as much of the fat as you can.  this is what it looks like pre-fat skimmed.

once you remove the fat, mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl and then pour the cornstarch mixture into the sauce.

mix and then cook until the sauce is thickened slightly.

put the sliced chicken back into the sauce and stir to coat the chicken with sauce.

serve the shoyu chicken with a sprinkle of chopped green onion.

aloha!

Shoyu Chicken

by Miki

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
• 1 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cold water

Directions

1. Place the chicken thighs into the bowl of your slow cooker/crockpot.
2. Mix the shoyu (soy sauce), brown sugar, garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, and water in a medium bowl.
3. Pour the sauce over the chicken.  Mix to ensure each chicken thigh is covered with sauce.
4. Cook on low for 4-5 hours or on high for 2-2 1/2 hours.
5. When the chicken is done, remove chicken from stock pot and cut into slices.
6. Prior to putting the chicken back in the stockpot, skim off some of the fat in the sauce.  Then combine the cornstarch and cold water and whisk it into the crockpot to thicken up the sauce a bit.
7. Put the sliced chicken back in and stir around to recoat the chicken in the sauce.
8. Serve hot over a bed of white rice and sprinkle some chopped green onions on top.

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Posted by miki on March 6, 2013

http://heymikiheymiki.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/shoyu-chicken/