Drunken chicken with sake

I'm heard of drunken chicken (醉鸡) for a while. Being spoiled by a wine culture, I am a little less than willing to try it for fear of any disappointment with the wine. For I've learnt that the quality of wine can make a real difference in the taste of the food. Considering that drunken chicken is a cold dish prepared by letting the cooked chicken soak in the wine overnight, the quality of the wine in this dish matters even more than in hot dishes. However, one day, I couldn't resist the thought of it anymore. So I simply went to the market and picked up a high quality dry sake, and then went on to wiki to check out the description of this dish. Then proceeded the experiment.

Recipe: Drunken chicken with sake (make 6 drumsticks)

Ingredients:
- 6 chicken drumsticks, bone removed but skin kept
- 1/2 tablespoon (TB) salt
- 1 teaspoon (tp) garlic powder
- 3/4 bottle (75ml) dry or extra dry sake
For gravy:
- 1/4 cup juice from steaming the drumsticks
- 1/4 tp (or to taste) hoisin sauce, for the sweetness
- 1/4 tp (or to taste) light soy sauce, for the saltiness
- 1/4 tp dark soy sauce, for the color and aroma
- 1 tp sesame oil, for the aroma and mouth feel

Procedure:
- Wrap de-boned drumsticks in aluminum foil. Lay flat in a metal dish and let steam on high heat for 35 minutes. Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Unwrap drumsticks and save the juice from steaming. Keep juice in air-tight container and chill in fridge. Place the steamed drumsticks in the ice water. Do so carefully to prevent the skin from breaking. Let soak for 5 minutes.
- Mix 3/4 bottle of sake with 2 tp salt and stir until salt completely dissolve. The liquid should taste rather salty but not burning. Use a container or plastic bag just big enough to contain all the chicken. Pour in the sake, and make sure all the meat is fully immersed. Let chill in the fridge overnight. Turn chicken once after 5 hours to ensure that all sides are covered in liquid. The chicken meat hardens in alcohol, for this reason, drumstick is preferred over breast meat.
- 30 minutes before serving time, prepare the gravy by heating the chicken juice (in jelly form after chilling) with the list of sauces. When the gravy ingredients are fully incorporated, let cool at room temperature to form a gel. Cut chicken. Then pour thickened gravy onto the meat and serve.

The mouth feel of the chicken is really good! However, after soaking in sake for over 24 hours, the chicken has taken up a little too much of the taste of the sake (with 14% alcohol). Next time I'd try to half the soaking time, and possibly try using a white wine too. Sake tastes more like beer while white wine is more acidic. We'll see how it goes next time.