There’s nothing like the peppery, herby notes of Thai basil to brighten up this saucy recipe for Taiwanese chicken and rice.

Time: 3/5
Doable on a weeknight, but you have to want it

Effort: 4/5
A pretty involved, multi-step endeavour

One Chicken Three Cups

It seems like there is a bottomless hole in my life that I keep trying to fill with chicken and rice. I didn’t mean for that to rhyme, but here we are. (As I did my proofreading, I re-read that in my head with the voice of Bullhorn from the gloriously NSFW Black Dynamite animated series. Fun times.)

I just finished whipping up a small batch of Pad Krapao Moo and had a bunch of Thai basil lying around – although it wasn’t for that original post, but rather to go with a later Tom Yum Kung. You can see it lurking in the background. Fresh herbs don’t last long, and I hate letting perfectly good food go to waste.

Thai basil isn’t something you might immediately associate with Taiwanese cuisine, but Three Cup Chicken (三杯雞, saam bui gai / san bei ji) is a phenomenal dish. It’s named for the quantities of the three main flavouring ingredients: soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil. Together with a complex caramel sauce and the peppery, herby notes of Thai basil, Three Cup Chicken is a definite winner for a rice dinner.

A final note on quantity. Because everything is done in a wok over a domestic stove, you’re not going to be making huge batches and there isn’t much opportunity to multitask on vegetables or side dishes. It’s the same problem I ran into with the Szechuan Spicy Chicken for the same reason.

There are better options if you are looking to fulfill your chicken and rice needs with optimal efficiency. For example, the Yogurt Mint Chicken recipe, where the oven does all the work for you. But I knocked out 6 delicious meals on a weeknight, which will go on to make lunch break a very pleasant event for us the next few days ahead.

(Looking for more Taiwanese-inspired recipes? Check out my attempt to make a macro-friendly, meal prep version of Taiwanese stewed pork sauce over rice – Lu Rou Fan.)

Dramatis Personae

Chicken – 100-200g pax

Boneless skin-on thighs are my meal prep workhorse. You could do skinless thighs or white meat, but both of those options deprive you of the joy of well-browned chicken skin.

I dust my chicken with some corn starch to help the surface brown and hang on to the sauce better, but it’s optional. You could also marinade the chicken pieces with a bit of salt and white pepper ahead of time, but I wasn’t in the mood this time and it still turned out okay.

Aromatics

A few cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole. These will be kinda roasted in oil with gentle heat to infuse the oil with garlicky flavour, so we want the garlic to be in big sturdy chunks so they don’t burn easily.

A few slices of ginger. Peeling optional, but do wash it well if you choose to leave the peel on. Ginger gives off a delightful aroma when fried in oil, which will translate into extra depth of flavour and complexity in the final dish.

A degree of spiciness is also common in Three Cup Chicken, so feel free to include a chili pepper or two. I didn’t have any on hand, and I couldn’t be bothered to get a whole bunch just to use two for this and leave the rest untouched the for the rest of the month.

Sugar – about a tablespoon pax

Rock sugar is traditional, but I used brown sugar because it’s what I have. White sugar works too. We’ll be cooking this into a caramel to coat the chicken pieces.

Sauce

About a tablespoon per portion each of soy sauce and Chinese rice wine, and a teaspoon of sesame oil likewise. I have no doubt that Three Cup Chicken would be delicious if drowned in sesame oil, but I’m not sure my waistline can handle that. Plus, nobody said the three cups had to be the same size.

Start with conservative amounts and adjust the final sauce to taste. Remember kids: with cooking, you can always add but you can never subtract.

Thai basil – a lot

Essential to the whole operation. You could leave it out and get an end result that tastes delicious nonetheless, but it would not be Three Cup Chicken. Try hard to get some and don’t worry about having Thai basil leftover, because that just means a Pad Krapao Moo waiting to happen!

Vegetables – about 200g pax

Always eat your veggies! I passed by the market just as the stalls were trying to clear out their stock before closing. The vegetable lady recommended this new kind I never tried before, which looks like Napa cabbage trying to get into the NBA. I can’t remember it’s name for the life of me, but it was pleasantly sweet and turned out to be a nice refreshing counterpoint for the bold, saucy chicken.

Executive summary

1. Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and dust with corn starch.
2. Brown the chicken over high heat, in batches if needed. Reserve.
3. Prepare aromatics while waiting for chicken to brown. Once chicken is done, turn the heat down and fry the ginger until fragrant.
4. Add whole garlic cloves and sauté over gentle heat, until softened and browned.
5. Add sugar into the pan, heating until it’s dissolved into caramel. Add chicken back to pan and toss to coat.
6. Add the sauce, stirring to combine. Simmer for a few minutes until thickened. Taste and adjust seasoning.
7. Turn the heat off and stir in Thai basil, letting them wilt in the residual heat.
8. Serve, ideally by spooning it onto rice along with plenty of the sauce.

Play by Play

Ginger cut, garlic peeled, Thai basil washed and picked. The stems have plenty of flavour too, so I’m saving them for adding along with the rest of the aromatics. I peeled some extra garlic for the vegetables while I was at it too.

Starting off with the veg, because I only have one wok and I don’t want the vegetables to taste like the chicken (sometimes it’s nice to have some contrast in the meal, you know?). It might look like a lot of veg and that it wouldn’t fit, but have patience. As the vegetables cook they will wilt. I put a lid on after the picture to help it cook down.

Cutting the chicken, then tossing them in corn starch right on the cutting board because it’s already dirty and I’m not washing another bowl. Here is an opportunity to do some quick counter top marinading if you add a bit of salt and pepper along with the corn starch. Easy on the salt though, the sauce will be plenty salty.

You need less oil than you think you do when cooking with skin-on thighs because a lot of schmaltz renders out. Fry until beautifully brown and reserve. Don’t worry about cooking them through because the chicken will be simmered in the sauce later.

I did mine in two batches to avoid crowding the pan. I kept the first batch on the cutting board because all the chicken will be cooked again before serving and – say it with me, kids – it’s already dirty and I’m not washing another bowl.

The pan is still quite hot after frying the chicken, even if you turn the heat down. Fortunately, ginger can tolerate that kind of heat (and in fact benefits from it – fried ginger has a delicious, complex flavour) so the ginger slices go in first to soak up some of the residual heat.

Now that the ginger has cooled the pan down considerably, it’s safe to start infusing the schmaltzy oil with garlic flavour without the danger of burning the cloves. The stems of the Thai basil have plenty of flavour and are easy to pick out later, so no sense in letting them go to waste.

Here’s the most important part. The sugar will turn into a caramel sauce along with the schmaltzy, gingery, garlicky oil, which will go on to coat each piece of chicken.

After the sugar has become caramel, return the chicken to the wok and toss to coat. This is my wok after the soy sauce and Chinese rice wine went in. Let the whole thing simmer for about 10 minutes so the sauce can thicken, and the chicken can absorb some of that delicious flavour.

I’m happy with how thick the sauce is, so now is when I shut the heat off, drizzle in my sesame oil and add the Thai basil. The residual heat is enough to wilt the Thai basil and release its wonderful aroma.

I can’t tell the future, but I have a feeling that I’m going to be a happy man come lunch tomorrow.

Tsiah-bung! Nothing beats good old white jasmine rice for pairing with saucy chicken!

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