I enjoyed the cold ginger chicken dish at Wo Fat Chinese Restaurant in Las Vegas recently and I thought I could make something similar using my Sous Vide. I thought the chicken would get the right infusion of flavor and a certain tenderness that I wanted.  Instead of a whole chicken I just used legs so everything would be done at the same time in the Sous Vide. I studied several recipes for Hawaiian Style Cold Ginger Chicken.

Basically Cold Ginger Chicken is made by simmering a whole chicken in water with ginger garlic and green onions. Then you pull it out of the liquid when cooked and then shock it with cold water and chop and serve with the sauce. At the restaurant they served the chicken with bones and skin that you had to remove. They also served it WARM so I also serve it warm. I prefer to remove the skin and bones before serving.

Not all but many of the recipes I looked at for the sauce included a large amount of oil that you heat up and add the minced green onions and ginger with a little garlic and cilantro. What I did different from most recipes was to cut the oil to only 1/4 cup and added some water. I didn’t want to use a large amount of oil for this dish. When I made the sauce I thought it was good but as it sat it turned more oniony than I wanted so I added 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and one teaspoon of rice wine vinegar. It seemed balanced after that but I don’t know if those are ingredients are authentic for a cold ginger chicken recipe but they taste good that way so there they are. This dish comes out FORKING AMAZING and different! It isn’t a strong ginger taste like you might expect. It just comes out DELICIOUS!

Ingredients Set Sous Vide to 176 degrees F 4-8 hours I’m doing 6

4 lbs. whole chicken legs

4 garlic cloves rough chopped

1/2 medium onion pealed and rough chopped

2 1/2 in. ginger chopped

1 carrot cut in a few pieces

1 small Thai chili cut in half

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1 Tablespoon fresh cilantro

2 scallions chopped in half

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 oz. frozen chicken fat

Everything goes in your Sous Vide Bag. Just Vacuum and seal and let it cook about 6 hours at 176 degrees F. When it’s done you can put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Don’t use any of the vegetables. All the flavor came out of them, they are trash now. I like to remove the skin and take the chicken off the bones to serve. Reserve the liquid from your Sous Vide bag for serving. Skim off the fat and use a tablespoon or 2 of liquid for each serving of chicken.

Sauce Ingredients

10 scallions chopped

3 garlic cloves chopped

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup grated ginger

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup water

2 teaspoons dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

Just blend up and heat before serving and pour over the chicken that might be warm.

This is a great recipe. Even people like my husband who hates ginger thinks this dish is delicious. Kept forking thanking me all night long for preparing this dish.

 

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