Perfectly glazed soya sauce chicken?

[marzeepea]

Is there a special technique to making cantonese style poached soya sauce chicken with uniformly golden skin?

The flavour's there, but the chicken skin always turns out blotchy - nowhere near the way the ones hanging in the windows of the Chinese restaurant look..

I marinate the chicken for a min. of 1/2 hr, the bring it to a boil in a mixture of soy sauce, dark brown sugar, some honey, pepper, ginger, garlic, star anise, cinnamon, Chinese plum blossom wine and spring onions - once it's boiling I turn off the heat and let it sit fully immersed in the mixture for an hour to let the skin absorb colour...and still no luck! Strange because I follow the precise recipe, instructions on food blogs where the step by step photos show the chicken turn perfectly brown..yet my results are vastly different.

I've previously tried scrubbing the chicken with salt before hand to remove any excess wax there might be, and also tried using Kikkoman and a different brand containing caramel...also no luck...

I wonder if it might be to do with the kind of chicken I'm using? I've used free range organic and corn fed, from my local London butcher and also from the supermarkets Sainsburys and Waitrose.

Where am I going wrong?

Any suggestions and insights would be so much appreciated!

 

[Dawgluver]

Oh dear, haven't the foggiest idea.

Hopefully someone else does! Welcome to DC!

 

[Zhizara]

I prefer to just remove the skin. First, so the marinade can get all over the meat, and second, for the same reason you're having problems. The skin just gets in the way and looks unappetizing.