(A no-carbohydrate recipe)
This is my own recipe for soy ginger garlic chicken. Soy, as in soy sauce, and ginger, as in powdered ginger. This is a recipe for fried chicken, so those looking to escape oil and fat should probably look elsewhere. It is not, however, breaded, and none of the ingredients have any significant carbohydrates. This is one of the things I ate the most on my low-carb diet.
While I generally choose to use powdered spices for convenience, you may want to use the real thing. In that case, go overboard on the garlic as it won't really adhere to the chicken and you want to get as much of the flavor into it as possible, but relax on the ginger. Ginger tends to get into things quite easily.
Ingredients:
- Chicken parts, with or without bones and skin
- Soy Sauce
- Ground Ginger
- Garlic Powder
- Ground Red Pepper
- Vegetable cooking oil
Equipment:
- Skillet
- Turner
- Something to drain the chicken with - Either paper towels or some kind of rack. The paper towels work best but you may not be the type to kill trees for your convenience as I am.
Preparation:
Heat the oil in the skillet at medium-low heat - You want the oil to be at or close to 375 deg. F. When the oil looks like it's about ready to fry with, put the chicken in the pan. If the oil is on the hotter side, cover it until the spatter die down|dies down. When you are able to approach the pan, splash the chicken parts liberally with soy sauce.
The spice is what tunes the flavor of the chicken. I put a lot of garlic powder on the chicken, basically covering it in the stuff. Then I dust it lightly but evenly with the ground red pepper, and then slightly more energetically with the ginger. Ground ginger doesn't have nearly the potency of the fresh stuff. Spice the chicken every time you flip it, and splash it with soy sauce any time it seems dry.
Chicken should optimally be cooked for four minutes on a side, and flipped four times for pieces, or three times for strips(1). However, I find that the pan rarely heats evenly. I end up flipping the chicken more than that. Assuming your pan isn't too hot, your chicken is done when the outside is a pleasant, dark golden brown. There may be some spices encrusted onto the chicken, which will not adversely affect the flavor, unless you've really burned a lot of them on there. If you left the skin on, it should have taken on a wonderful crispy texture by now.
Variation:
You can modify this recipe to taste like orange by using marmalade. Simply flip the chicken more frequently, and before spicing it alternate between applying soy sauce, and marmalade. If the marmalade is too thick, thin it with soy until you can apply it easily. Smucker's has a low-sugar orange marmalade which has only 5 grams of carbohydrates from sugars per two tablespoons. Only about half of what you use will actually end up on your chicken.
References:
1. oknos. Fried Chicken. Everything2, March 29, 2000.