Shanghai Three Cup Chicken (San Bei Ji) via Taiwanese Influence

Ingredients

• 1 kg bone-in chicken pieces, chopped through the bone into bite-sized pieces
• For the three-cup sauce
• 80 ml roasted sesame oil, dark, toasted variety — not light sesame oil
• 80 ml soy sauce
• 80 ml rice wine (mijiu or Shaoxing)
• 30 g fresh ginger, sliced into coins
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
• 4–6 dried red chillies, whole
• 1 tsp fish sauce, Taiwanese addition for umami depth
• 1 large handful Thai basil, leaves picked

Method

1. 1
   Set a wok or wide heavy pan over high heat. Pour in the roasted sesame oil and, when it shimmers, add the ginger and garlic. Fry, stirring, until fragrant and beginning to colour at the edges — the oil should smell deeply nutty and the kitchen aromatic.
2. 2
   Add the dried red chillies and the chicken pieces. Press the chicken against the hot surface without moving it, allowing each piece to develop a deep golden-brown fond. Turn and brown the remaining sides. The chicken is ready to proceed when a good mahogany crust has formed on all exposed surfaces.
3. 3
   Pour in the soy sauce, rice wine, and fish sauce in a single addition. Stir once to distribute. This is where the dish lives or dies: increase the heat to its highest setting and leave the pan uncovered, reducing the sauce rapidly and without interference until it thickens to a glossy, lacquered coat that clings to each piece of chicken and pools only minimally on the pan floor. A sauce that flows freely has not reduced sufficiently.
4. 4
   Remove the pan from the heat entirely. Scatter the Thai basil leaves over the chicken and fold them through once. The residual heat will wilt the leaves in thirty seconds; they should turn glossy and just collapsed, never black. A bitter or dark basil signals the pan was too hot or the leaves added too early.