Chi you ji (豉油鸡, soy sauce chicken) is a Cantonese preparation — a whole chicken poached in a master soy brine (similar to the lo shui), developing a mahogany-lacquered skin with a subtly sweet, savoury, deeply seasoned flavour. It is one of the three standard Cantonese chicken preparations (alongside white cut chicken and salt-baked chicken) and appears at every Cantonese roast meat shop.
The soy brine: Combine 500ml light soy sauce, 250ml dark soy sauce, 200ml Shaoxing wine, 100g rock sugar, 1L water, ginger slices, scallion stalks, star anise (3), cinnamon (1 stick), bay leaves (4). Bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes. Taste — the brine should be savoury and slightly sweet. The poaching method: The chicken is not fully submerged but is repeatedly lifted and lowered into the brine ('dipping' method, zhan zhi fa, 沾汁法) — the chicken is submerged for 3-4 minutes, lifted out, then submerged again, repeated 4-5 times. This produces more even cooking than a full submersion poach and allows the skin to develop a more even lacquered colour. Alternatively, the chicken can be submerged and poached at 85C for 25-30 minutes. The result: The skin should be a deep mahogany-red, smooth and slightly sticky. The flesh should be just cooked through at the bone.
Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking (2009); Fuchsia Dunlop, Land of Fish and Rice (2016)