Sesame Oil Chicken

Sesame oil chicken belongs to the Taiwanese tradition of 'tonic foods' — dishes eaten to warm and rebuild the body. In Han Chinese custom carried to Taiwan by Fujian and Hakka settlers, the new mother spends a confinement month resting and eating warming, blood-nourishing food, and sesame oil chicken is its single most representative dish. The same logic makes it a staple of 'winter supplementation' at the start of winter and through the cold season. Black-sesame oil, old ginger, and rice wine are all classed as warming in Chinese dietary thinking, which is why the three are cooked together here; the rice wine is meant to be slow-simmered so the alcohol cooks off and only its aroma and sweetness remain.

First comes the ginger and toasted-sesame fragrance, deep and warming; then the rich, glossy chicken, its skin slicked with sesame oil. The broth is light-bodied but heady with rice wine, faintly bitter-sweet from the browned oil, and so warming that a few mouthfuls flush the cheeks. Old ginger surrenders a slow, building heat rather than a sharp bite.

Two steps decide the flavor. First, the old ginger is fried in black-sesame oil over low heat until its edges curl and brown — this drives off the ginger's raw pungency and, through the Maillard reaction, builds the soup's deep aroma; the oil must stay below a smoke that would turn the sesame harshly bitter. Second, rice wine replaces most or all of the water: simmered uncovered and long enough, the alcohol boils off (ethanol leaves at 78°C) while the wine's sugars and esters concentrate into the broth's mellow sweetness. Old ginger is used rather than young because its higher gingerol and shogaol content gives the lasting, warming heat the dish is prized for.