NEVER Fry Your Chicken Thighs Again! Try These Old Chinese Tricks Instead

You fry chicken thighs because the package tells you to. The oil spits at your arms, the skin burns black, and when you cut into the thigh the meat by the bone is still pink. So it goes back in the pan until the outside is burnt and the inside is dry. The problem was never you. The problem is the frying pan. I'm Mei Lin, and I grew up in Guangzhou, in the south of China. My mother fed six children there on very little money, and a chicken thigh never once went into her frying pan. She cooked it in one pot of dark, sweet soy sauce with ginger and star anise, over the lowest flame. It came out glossy, the color of polished wood, and tender right down to the bone. In Cantonese cooking this is called soy sauce chicken, and it is the shining chicken you see hanging in the windows of Chinese barbecue shops. You don't need a restaurant to make it, only one pot, about an hour, and ten old tricks. In this video: • Why bone-in, skin-on thighs cook better than boneless, and usually cost less • Rock sugar, and the gentle sweetness and shine white sugar can't give you • Why you need two soy sauces, one for flavor and one for color • Why the sauce cooks for 5 minutes before the chicken goes in • Skin side down first, and why the bubbles must stay small • Turning the thighs once, and only once • The Cantonese trick of turning off the heat and letting the covered pot finish the cooking • Why thighs are best at 175 to 195°F, not 165°F, and how to check without a thermometer • How to boil the leftover sauce into a shining glaze • The master sauce: why you should never throw the sauce away, and how to keep it going for years • Honest troubleshooting for pale skin, tough meat, and chicken still pink at the bone • What to do with the leftover sauce: soy eggs, noodles, and a fried egg over rice No special equipment and no expensive ingredients. Everything here costs a few dollars, and the sauce gets better every time you use it. It's the same method my mother used in her kitchen in Guangzhou. Did your mother or grandmother cook a chicken like this? Where was she from, and what did her kitchen smell like when dinner was almost ready? Tell me in the comments. I want to hear it before it is gone.