Easiest Way to Make Homemade Tea & Soy Sauce Braised Chicken

Tea & Soy Sauce Braised Chicken.

You can cook Tea & Soy Sauce Braised Chicken using 13 ingredients and 8 steps. Here is how you achieve it.

Ingredients of Tea & Soy Sauce Braised Chicken

1. It's 2.5 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken.
2. It's 1 teaspoons of kosher salt.
3. Prepare 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
4. Prepare 2 Tablespoons of oil.
5. You need 1 inch of segment of ginger root, sliced into 1/8" discs.
6. It's 1/2 of large onion (brown or white), cut into 1/4" slices.
7. You need 4-5 cloves of garlic, crushed.
8. Prepare 2-3 Tablespoons of tea (I used oolong, but you could use other plain green or black varieties).
9. It's 1 of +1/4 cup water.
10. It's 1/8 cup of Chinkiang or balsamic vinegar.
11. It's 1/4 cup of soy sauce.
12. You need 3 Tablespoons of packed brown sugar.
13. Prepare 1 of green onion, julienned (or cut in thin strips) and julienned ginger for garnish and added flavor.

Tea & Soy Sauce Braised Chicken step by step

1. Season the chicken on both sides with the salt and pepper..
2. In a large pot/pan (this one's a 13" saute), bring the 2 Tablespoons of oil to medium high heat and brown and sear the chicken, about 3 minutes per side..
3. Put the chicken aside and saute the aromatics (onions, ginger, garlic) in the pan until the onions just begin to turn translucent..
4. Deglaze the pan with 1/4 cup of water, soy sauce and vinegar, making sure to scrape all the fond (the yummy bits left sticking to the pan after you sear the chicken) off the bottom, and add the tea..
5. Lower the heat to medium low, pour in the rest of the water, stir in the brown sugar, and add the chicken - SKIN SIDE DOWN - and simmer, partially covered (leaving about a half inch crack to allow steam to escape) for 20 minutes. Because heat builds and accumulates during the simmering process, it's a good idea to stir the chicken and check the temp once in a while to make sure it's not getting so hot that the chicken and/or sauce are burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan..
6. After simmering for 20 minutes, flip the chicken over, SKIN SIDE UP (this is important, as you need to give the skin some time to dry out before going under the broiler) and simmer another 20 minutes. At this point, preheat the oven to BROIL..
7. Once the chicken has simmered 40 minutes total, take it off the stove top and place it under the broiler so that the tops of the chicken are 3 to 4 inches from the heat element so the skin can char and crisp, about 2 minutes (check after about a minute and a half, and every 10 seconds thereafter - stuff can go from perfectly charred and caramelized to burnt beyond recognition very quickly under the broiler)..
8. Plate with the julienned green onions and ginger sprinkled on top. I like to serve this with steamed jasmine rice, green beans stir-fried in a sweet, caramelized oyster sauce with some garlic, and baby bok choy stir-fried with oyster sauce, garlic and just a hint of ginger..