A Taste Of the Regions of China: 三杯鸡 Three Cup Chicken or Basil Chicken

Moist succulent chicken meat, cooked down in a flavorful sauce and tossed with fragrant basil leaves. Pleasure for the senses...mmm...mmm..so good. And simple and quick to prepare. I love dishes with those qualities. I think just about every cook is always on the look out for more dishes that are quick, easy and delicious, I know I am.
Taiwanese typically cut up a whole or half chicken, including feet and head, but you can just use any dark meat (emphasis on the dark because chicken breast is not as good for this dish). They also use skin-on, bone-in meat but you can do according to your personal preference.

This dish was requested by a reader. I love getting reader requests! SanBeiJi or three cup chicken is traditionally made with equal parts soy sauce, cooking wine and sesame oil hense it's name. The Taiwanese restaurant my reader had this at calls it Basil Chicken on their menu.

Taiwan was my first Asian country to live in and was also during the time when I first began to learn Mandarin Chinese. After leaving Taiwan I continued my university studies in which I completed a Chinese minor and then went to China to teach English and to work more on my Mandarin language skills. Having not yet learned to read characters before going to Taiwan, I ordered a lot of the same dishes over and over. I only just touched on the culinary adventure that is Taiwan and I excitedly wait the day when I can return. This is one of the many dishes I missed out on while I was there.

This dish originated in the JiangXi Provence of Southern China but is now especially popular in Taiwan. I have heard it called Taiwan's most popular dish (among Taiwanese). It is said in Taiwan "A restaurant that cannot cook SanBeiJi is not a true Taiwanese restaurant". It is traditionally a claypot or "hotpot" dish. I tried to make it a one pot meal for you all, and there are many recipes out there that are one pot ( for example: this video here which was the fist way I tried cooking it). But I much prefered the method I found for making it here in this video, sorry! But it is definitely worth the difference it makes in the end result. Feel free though to try out the method used in the first video though if you don't want to dirty a lot of pots. I totally understand and it will still be delicious.

2 Lbs. Chicken (dark meat, bone in)
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup sesame oil
5 slices ginger root
5 cloves garlic
1 red chili or more (you can choose which chili to use depending on how spicy you like it), cut into pieces
1/3 cup Chinese cooking wine (choose one that is dark in color)
Sesame oil for drizzling
cooking wine for drizzling
1 large handful basil leaves

Marinade
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sugar

Cut chicken into pieces about 3"x 3". Mix together 1/3 cup soy sauce and 1/3 cup sugar and pour over the chicken. Toss the chicken in the marinade until about half of the liquid is sucked up into the chicken meat then let rest 20-30 minutes.

Heat a pan over high heat, add 1 cup warm water and 1/4 cup sesame oil and bring to a boil. Add the chicken and any remaining marinade and cover the pan with a lid and allow to cook while you continue on with the next step.

Heat another pan over high heat and add 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil. When the oil is hot add in the ginger slices, garlic cloves and chili pieces.

Simmer until fragrant then add 1/3 cup cooking wine.

Pour the chicken with liquid from the other pan over top of the garlic, ginger and chili's. Cover with a lid and steam for 1 minute. Remove the lid and cook over high heat another couple minutes, stirring periodically and making sure the chicken gets flipped. Cook until the sauce has thickened, frequently tossing the chicken in the sauce so that the chicken get a nice even coating of sauce. Turn off the heat.