The Soy Sauce Chicken My Dad's Made 100,000 Times

Daddy Lau likes to start by washing the chicken, but this step is optional! If you do wash your chicken, focus on rinsing inside the breast and getting debris out of the cavity. Afterwards, thoroughly wipe down and disinfect any surfaces that came into contact with the raw chicken, or may have had some water splash, to reduce the risk of cross-contamination.

Break the star anise into smaller pieces. To prevent pieces from flying everywhere, wrap the star anise in a paper towel, and then smack them with the side of a heavy knife.

Heat the wok on high heat. Add oil.

Transfer chicken to a larger pot. It should be deep enough so that the chicken will be at least half-submerged in the sauce. Pour the sauce carefully in, and bring it all to a simmer on low heat. Keep the chicken soaking in the simmering sauce for 15 minutes with the lid on.

When the chicken is fully cooked, it needs to cool down as fast as possible so that it doesn't keep cooking from its own residual heat. Prepare a large bowl with a bag of ice on the bottom. The bag prevents melting ice from diluting the chicken.

While waiting for the chicken to cool, bring the soy sauce to a boil. This will make it last longer and you can reuse it for other dishes, or to make more soy sauce chicken. We'll only be using 3 ladlefuls of it for this dish, so store the rest of it somewhere safe.

Get to carving! If you haven't taken a cooked chicken apart before, just take it section by section.

Add 3 ladlefuls of our soy sauce from earlier into the wok. Turn the heat on high and let it come to a boil.