IMBB 17: Simmered Chicken In Black Tea

This installment of Is My Blog Burning is hosted by Clement of A La Cuisine. The theme Clement picked is tasteTea!!! FantasTEA... I've quite a number of tea related dishes that I could think of, thanks to my frequent visits to Purple Cane Tea Cultural Centre over at The Chinese Assembly Hall. This branch serves food whereby the rest of the branches either sell Chinese tea leaves or it's a tea house. Basically, all their dishes listed in their menu contained tea. We liked it there as the dishes are pork free and they are very light in nature, promoting a healthy cuisine. Might blog about this place some other time ok. I've learnt a lot about tea culture, the various types of tea leaves and the tea ceremony from the co-owner, Camelia. She's a very nice lady and always have time for a chat whenever we're there. Nowadays, I think she's based at their new HQ at Shaw Parade.

Now back to my submission... I've consulted my A Passage to Chinese Tea book (not many English books on Chinese Tea, hence, this one by Purple Cane is worth every Ringgit for a banana like me) and found the easiest recipe to recreate for this IMBB.

Simmered Chicken In Black Tea

Ingredients

One whole kampung (free range in Malay) chicken
15g black tea
2kg water
5g star anise
5g cinnamon stick
2g clove

Method

PUT all ingredients except chicken into a clay pot over medium heat. Add in 15 teaspoons of sugar and 500g of thick soya sauce and cook for about 15 minutes. As the gravy comes into a light simmer, put the whole chicken into the pot and let it simmer over low heat for 20-25 minutes. Serve the chicken whole or chopped and top with gravy.

Well, this sounds like a direct translation from the chef's cookbook, more like for restaurant's measurement. Hence, I tweak and guesstimate my way thru. I've replaced whole chicken with 2 chicken thighs. I've used Puer tea leaves which is a red tea rather than black. OK will use black tea next time, no wonder it tasted different ooppss... I've simmered the chicken with whole firm or pressed bean curd. If you were to order this dish in Purple Cane, they've simmered peanuts on the side but I've omitted them. You may also thicken the gravy with some cornstarch solution before serving.

Easy recipe but if you're gonna tweak the recipe, make sure you do a trial run first before serving your guests this dish. However, if you're serving guinea pigs, I guess it's pretty ok. I've used too much tea leaves which rendered a bitter taste. I've tried saving the dish by adding salt, sugar, soya sauce and thick soya sauce to mask the bitterness which I think it was quite successfully done. My guinea pig can't detect the bitterness at all, his only comment was the bean curd has got no taste. Hmm, means I need to simmer the bean curd longer.

Also for the lovely chicks to appear nice and sexy here, I've the skin on which is not recommended as it made the gravy rather oily. So please skin your chicken. Here's how it looked like... not that sexy after all hahaha cos got bald spot on one thigh. Thanks Clement for hosting this round of IMBB.