Ingredients: chicken legs, ginger, green onions, star anise, sugar,soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine

Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time: 3 hours

材料：雞腿、薑、葱、八角、糖、醬油、老抽醬油、米酒

準備時間：5 分鐘 烹煮時間：3 小時

Directions:

• 4 chicken legs washed and dried. Use tip of a steak knife poke holes in chicken, particularly along the bones, for even cooking and seasoning.
• Cut a small ginger into thin slices. Cut 2 green onions into sections. Break a star anise into pieces.
• Pour and evenly spread 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil into the pot of slow cooker. Arrange ginger slices, green onions, star anise and 3 tablespoons of sugar evenly on the bottom of the pot.
• Arrange chicken legs in the pot. Cook in the high setting for 1.5 hours.
• After 1.5 hours, evenly pour in 1/2 cup of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce and 2 tablespoons of rice wine on top of the chicken.
• Cook for another 1.5 hours. At the meantime, turn the chicken legs over several times to make sure either side of the chicken is submerged in the sauce for at least 15 minutes. This will also contribute even color of the chicken.
• Remove the chicken legs from the pot immediately after cooking. Let them cool down on a plate. You may consider place the plate on top of a bowl of ice. It is said that rapid cooling of the chicken will improve the texture to make it tender but elastic in this dish. Save the sauce as a dip for the chicken after removing all the solids.

作法：

• 4 隻雞腿洗淨擦乾。用小刀的刀尖在雞肉上擢一些洞，尤其是在骨頭周邊，可以讓調味和烹煮均勻
• 把一小塊薑切薄片，兩根葱切段，一粒八角弄碎。
• 均勻地倒2大匙蔬菜油在慢鍋的鍋中，把薑片、葱段和八角均勻放入鍋中。灑入3大匙糖。
• 把鷄腿排列在上。用高溫設定煮1個半小時。
• 1.5 小時後，倒入半杯醬油、2大匙老抽和2大匙米酒，儘可能均勻分布在雞肉上。
• 継續煮1個半小時，就可以煮好了。在這其間，將雞肉翻面數次，確定鷄肉的每一面都有機會浸泡在醬汁中，至少15分鐘。這樣也能夠讓雞肉表面的顏色均勻漂亮。
• 煮好之後，立刻將雞肉取出放在盤子上，讓雞腿儘快冷卻。你也可以考慮將盤子放在冰上，據說這樣快速冷卻，可以使雞肉的質感更嫩更Q彈。把醬汁倒出來，除去渣滓，就可以做雞肉的醬料了。

Note: Slow cooker and this soy sauce chicken are a perfect match in my personal opinion. The traditional way of making this chicken is pouring boiling sauce over the chicken in the pot to ensure the cooking temperature is lower than water boiling point. This method is to make the meat juicy and tender. I developed this slow cooker recipe for the character of low temperature cooking in mind. The result is the incredibly juicy and tender chicken. A good food critic specialized in food texture, my husband, believes the chicken in this recipe tastes pretty close to the same dish served in our most favorite restaurant. I am very happy with this simplified version too.

Due to not adding water during cooking, the sauce in this dish is condensed and ready to be used with the chicken. I make good use of the leftover sauce to flavor other dishes too. For example, use the sauce to stir fry soy beans and diced dried tofu with garlic or to cook hard boiled eggs, etc. I am not good at cutting chicken with bones. So I first remove the bone with a knife, then slice the meat, as in the top picture. It is not perfect but still presentable. Hope you enjoy this simple but tasty soy sauce chicken,You Ji. Happy cooking!

筆記：我個人覺得用慢鍋來做油雞是一個完美組合。傳統做油雞的方式是將滾熱的湯汁淋在雞肉上，使雞肉變熟且軟嫩多汁，基本上是用低溫約方式來煮雞肉。我發展這道用慢鍋來做的油雞，也是利用慢鍋的低溫(低於水沸騰的溫度）煮食方法，結果是雞肉相當軟嫩而且有彈性。根據我老公對於食物質感的嚴格要求，他認為吃起來和我們最喜歡的餐廳賣的油雞差不多。我自己對這個化繁為簡食譜也相當滿意。

這道菜的湯汁因為沒有加任何水，所以很濃郁，可以直接用做雞肉的醬汁。剩下的醬汁不要倒掉，可以用來做其他菜的調味。例如我用醬汁來炒毛豆加上豆干和一些蒜頭一起煮就很好吃，也可以用來滷蛋或滷豆干，都很不錯。我自己刀功不好，剁帶骨頭的雞肉是不可能的，所以我用刀子小心地除去骨頭之後，再把雞肉切片，雖不完美但還是可以看的，如上方照片所示。希望你喜歡這道簡單不失美味的油雞！