A variety of drunken chicken

The first time I made drunken chicken, I used extra-dry sake and soaked for 24 hours. As it turned out, the chicken was just a little too drunk. So in the second attempt, I decided to try a variety of marinates and soak for a shorter time. 


Recipe: Three flavors of drunken chicken (7 drumsticks)

Ingredients:

- 7 chicken drumsticks, bone removed but skin kept

- 1 teaspoon (tp) salt

- 1 tp garlic powder

Shaoxing wine marinate:

- - half the juice from steaming the chicken

- 1/2 tp salt

- about 1/2 cup Shaoxing cooking wine to cover 2 drumsticks

White wine marinate:

- half the juice from steaming the chicken

- 1/2 tp salt

- about 1/2 cup white wine to cover 2 drumsticks

Marbella marinate:

- 1 tp dried oregano flakes

- 2 tp parsley flakes

- 1 bay leaf

- 1/2 tp coarse kosher salt

- 1/4 tp ground black pepper

- 1/2 tp garlic powder

- 1 pitted prunes, chopped

- 1/2 tp capers nonpareilles with juice

- 4 spanish green olives, pitted and chopped

- 1.5 TP brown sugar

- about 1/4 cup white wine to cover 3 drumsticks

- 2 tp red wine vinegar

- 1 TB olive oil

Procedure:

1. Wrap de-boned drumsticks in aluminum foil and seal. Lay wrapped chicken flat in a metal steaming dish with the folded edges on top, so as to keep most of the chicken juice while steaming (some will still be lost during cooking). Allow to steam on high heat for 35 minutes. Prepare a large bowl of ice water. Unwrap drumsticks and save the chicken juice. Place the steamed drumsticks in the ice water. Do so carefully to prevent the skin from breaking. Let soak for 5 minutes.

2. Prepare marinates by mixing all the ingredients. Partition the drumsticks into 3 batches. Keep each batch separately in a small plastic sandwich bag. Add one type of marinate to each bag, making sure that the marinate covers all the chicken in the bag. Squeeze out air bubbles in the bags and zeal. Keep in fridge for about 12 hours.

After 12 hours, the drumsticks soaked in Shaoxing wine and those in white wine had already taken up distinctive flavors, with a noticeably but mild hint of alcohol. So I rinsed them in cold water, and then stored them dry in containers. The Shaoxing cooking wine gave the chicken flavor than the white wine alone. The chicken in the Marbella marinate needed an extra day of soaking, after which it picked up the sweet and sour taste along with a hint of white wine. I liked both the Shaoxing and the Marbella because of their rich complexity. White wine alone does not provide enough complexity for this dish.