Empress Chicken (Gui Fei Chicken)

Story time: Empress chicken or better known as gui fei chicken is one of the four 'sexiest' chinese dishes. It is name after one of the four famous chinese beauty Concubine Yang Guifei or Drunken beauty. The finished dish carries a strong smell of wine, delicious and intoxicating. 

There are a lot of version of empress chicken and I have no idea which one is the original recipe. However, I decided to choose this one because I have all the ingredients in my pantry.. so I guess that explains it all :)

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken wings (I bought winglette. If you are using the whole wings cut each wings at the joint and keep the tips for chicken stock)
• 3 1/2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 1/2tbsp chinese wine
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 cloves star anise
• 10 dried chinese mushroom, soak for 20 minutes in hot water , remove stem, cut top to half
• 1 stalk spring onion, cut about 1 inch long
• 1 piece ginger root, about 1 inch slice
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/2 - 1 cup chicken stock (I don't have any chicken stock so I use water for mushroom soak)
• 1 tbsp cornstarch + 2 tbsp water

Method:

1. Prepare wings. 
2. Marinate with dark soy sauce, wine, salt, pepper, sugar and star anise. Marinate for at least 30 minutes.
3. Heat oil in large saucepan or wok over medium heat. Add ginger, stir fry until fragrant, then, add in chicken wings. Stir fry for 30 seconds to brown/ seal .
4. Add in marinate and stir to coat the wings.
5. Add spring onion and mushroom and stir fry for further 2 minutes. 
6. Pour in water from mushroom soak or chicken stock. Bring to boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Constantly check the liquid so that it doesn't dries up.
7. Remove chicken wings and mushroom to serving plate and thicken the sauce with cornstarch mixture, then, pour the sauce over the chicken and mushroom.