- This is the base of three cup chicken, soy sauce, sesame oil, and either beer or saki.

I like using saki.

You can also use soju, but I really do enjoy the saki finish.

I remember my father making this thing called three cup chicken, in Chinese it's called sanbeiji, and it would just be so comforting.

So this is boneless, skinless chicken thighs, so you wanna get both sides, salt and pepper.

Okay, then you make sure you wash your hands.

So you wanna let it come up to room temperature, let it sit for 30 minutes.

So the next thing you wanna do is cut your ginger, what you'll wanna do is use, (ginger snapping) use about two inches worth.

(knife thudding) And then you wanna slice it (knife thudding) pretty thin, but you don't really have to measure it.

(knife thudding) (knife thudding) Just like this.

Now you just wanna put it aside.

You know, part of the Taiwanese three cup chicken, basil is the key.

I really enjoy using Thai basil, Thai basil gives it a more anise flavor, it's more licorice-y.

If you can't find it, you can use sweet basil instead.

After these have been washed and dried, you can pluck the the leaves, and then you would wanna set it aside.

Now, you'll generally want a cup of these leaves, and they don't have to be cut, you could keep it whole.

All right, so now that the chicken has been setting for about 30 minutes, it comes up to room temperature.

That way, when gets into the pot, you're able to then brown it on both sides and it doesn't bring down the temperature of the sesame oil.

Step one, you wanna turn on your stove to high, and you wanna heat this up.

If you have a cast iron pot, that would be great, if not, just a regular pot is fine.

Okay, so you wanna pour in your toasted sesame oil.

And you would do all of it.

(oil sizzling) So when you see it shimmer, what you wanna do is then turn it down to medium, and then you wanna add your ginger to it, and add it slowly, because you don't want the oil to splash.

And now that you've added it, you could put it back up to high.

So what you wanna do is you want the ginger to saute a little bit, it does take, I wanna wanna say 30 seconds, you wanna make sure that it becomes aromatic.

So what we wanna do is, now that the ginger has cooked down a little bit, we wanna put the chicken in, and what you wanna do is brown the sides.

So you're not cooking it all the way through, but you're just making sure that it's browned.

Well, you know what, it smells amazing, you smell that sesame oil, some of that ginger.

It's just comforting.

Now that the chicken's been browned on both sides, you wanna remove it from the pan.

(oil sizzling) What you wanna do is add the soy sauce, careful.

And then you also wanna add the saki.

And then once you've added those things, add your sugar.

So this is two tablespoons of light muscovado sugar, that's the kinda sugar that I like to use, you can use any brown sugar or any white sugar that you like.

What that does is it adds a little more flavor to the overall dish.

And then once you've added the sugar and you stirred it around a little bit, you'll wanna add the chicken back in.

Bring the chicken up to boil, and once it's at boil, then you'll wanna turn the heat down to simmer, and then you'll wanna cover your pot for 20 minutes.

(lid thudding) In the original recipe that I learned from my father, he uses Budweiser, and that was one of his favorite beers.

But for me, I like to use saki, and the reason why is because it provides a cleaner and sweeter finish to the chicken after you've braised it with soy sauce and sesame oil.

Now that it's been 20 minutes, you wanna add in your basil.

So, I'll add about a cup in here, and whole leaves are fine.

You don't need to stir, you just put the lid back on, and let it simmer for another 10 minutes.

So it looks like it's ready, it's boiling.

(lid thudding) It smells amazing.

That's perfect.

(broth bubbling) All right, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna serve this up, turn off the heat.

Wanna serve this over rice, put some of that juice in there, and some of that chicken.

(bowls thudding) Here you go.

- Looks good.

- Enjoy it.

- I'm trying to think like how many times I've had this dish.

(Leo laughing) Many times, but each time, it's pretty different.

- It is, yeah.

I mean, I've cooked it probably, I don't know, 20, 30 times over the last few years.

- It's really neat that you have a family recipe that's been passed down, because does your grandma have this recipe too then, your dad's mom?

- You know, I don't recall her making this.

- Okay, interesting, so it may have started- - Yeah.

- With your dad.

- It could've.

I just remember when they were grad students, chicken was, you know, meat in general was just so expensive.

And so, every once in a while, this would be a special dish that he would make.

It's a good memory.

- Yeah.

- Whenever I make it, I think about my dad.

- Mm.

- And I think about just the, I have a flashback to that tiny little apartment that they had as students.

- And when I had this, it kind of broke some stereotypes of what Chinese food is, because I'm Korean, and the flavors, it's interesting because I do see a commonality between this and the Korean dish, what is it?

(Kyunghee speaking in Korean) - Mhm.

- Marinated chicken, because of the ginger.

- Yes.

- Right, ginger is such a common ingredient, I think, in Asian cultures.

- You know, I mean, Koreans, they use it in kimchi- - Mhm.

- They use it in a lot of different dishes, and it's the base, of a lot of different sauces.

- This is delicious.

- Thank you.

- And it really is so fascinating that it tastes different every single time you cook it.

- Yeah.

- Hm, I wonder why.

- [Leo] I dunno, maybe it's just dependent on my mood.

(Leo laughing) - You're in a very good mood today, this is very good.

- Thank you.

- Mhm.

(bright upbeat music) A book for kids.

- [Will Glover] And you can see Leo Chen and Kyunghee Kim's conversation about their experiences as Asian Americans living in Michigan, along with other AAPI stories, at onedetroitpbs.org.