Spicy Sweet Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken

This past weekend I used a recipe from the book The Asian Grill by Corinne Trang called Spicy Sweet Soy Sauce Marinated Chicken.  This recipe is actually fairly easy to make, even though a few ingredients could be tough to find in a normal grocery store, especially here in Iowa.

Recipe:

• 1/2 C thin Soy Sauce
• 1 T thick Soy Sauce
• 1/4 C Shaoxing Rice Wine or Sake
• 1/3 C Sugar
• 1 T Dark Sesame Seed Oil
• 2 Large Garlic Cloves, finely grated
• 1 scallion, trimmed and minced (white and greet parts)
• 1 to 1/2 T finely grated fresh Ginger
• 1 red Thai Chili, stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 8 whole chicken legs or whole breasts

Instructions:

In a large bowl, whisk together the think and thick soy sauces, rice wine, and sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved.  Add the sesame oil, garlic, scallion, ginger, and chili.  Stir well. Using a skewer, poke holes in the chicken legs or breasts.  Place the chicken and marinade in a resealable gallon plastic bag.  Squeezing out the air, seal the bag.  Holding on to the ends, shake the bag to coat the pieces evenly with the marinade.  Refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours, turning the bag over every 30 minutes or so to redistribute the marinade. Prepare an indirect fire in a charcoal or gas grill.  Grill the chicken breasts or legs until crisp and cook through, turning the meat frequently to prevent burning, 10 to 15 minutes total.  Transfer chicken to service dish.

Results:
I was extremely impressed with this chicken.  The marinade had a lot of flavor to it and was very simple to make.  The toughest part of this recipe is just finding ingredients.  One thing to watch out for is this marinade can cause the outside of the chicken to burn fairly quick, so be sure to flip often and not put over direct fire.  I could not find the Shaoxing rice wine, but was able to pick up some Sake at the local grocery store.  I had to get the thick soy sauce from the local Asian market along with the red Thai chili.  I ended up using a mixture of split chicken breasts, drumsticks, and chicken thighs and doubled up the marinade recipe.  I will definitely do this recipe again in the near future.