Braised Chicken Teochew Style (Lou Goi)

I adapted this recipe from Amy Beh's Braised Teochew Duck recipe. Since duck is not my favourite poultry, I used chicken instead. The resulting sauce is thick and rather sweet. I would reduce the amount of sugar next time, and add water to the sauce after the chicken is done, to thin it down, before adding other condiments such as boiled eggs and beancurd.



Ingredients
1 whole chicken (approximately 1.5kg)

Seasoning (combined):
1 tbsp Chinese five-spice powder
1 tbsp salt
2 slices (20gr) ginger
2 stalks spring onions (use only the white portion)
Oil for deep frying

Gravy:
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 cups water
50g garlic (whole)
25g shallots (whole)
4 star anises
6cm-piece cinnamon stick
100g galangal, sliced
3 cups water

Method
1. Rub the inside and outside of the chicken with the combined seasoning ingredients and leave aside to dry for one to two hours. To quicken up the process, place the rubbed chicken inside an oven, and bake at 150C for 20 minutes. This will seal the five-spice flavour in.
2. Heat enough oil, about 1/5 full, in a wok. Fry chicken in hot oil until just lightly browned. Remove and drain well. Place ginger and spring onions into cavity of chicken.
3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a wok, add sugar and three to four pieces galangal slices; when oil turns a dark gold, turn off heat. Add dark soy sauce. Return chicken to the wok and coat well with this sauce.
4. Combine all the gravy ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil then pour the cooked gravy ingredients over the chicken (sauce should cover more than half the chicken). Bring to a boil then simmer, covered, for 40 to 45 minutes over low heat or until chicken is tender and the sauce thick.
5. Dish out chicken and cut up into bite-sized pieces. Arrange chicken pieces on plate and pour gravy over. Serve hot.