America’s Test Kitchen | Episodes, Recipes & Reviews | America’s Test Kitchen

Some recipes for Three-Cup Chicken call for simmering a whole chicken that has been cut into pieces in 3 cups of sauce until the sauce reduces to a glaze, a substantial investment of time. We start with boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which eliminated the need to butcher a whole chicken with a cleaver and cut the cooking time significantly. We also thinly sliced the scallions and ginger and halved the garlic cloves instead of mincing them to deliver balanced flavors and textures. We scaled the volume of the liquids to less than one-third the amount called for in the recipe title, using just ⅓ cup each of soy sauce and dry sherry, our substitute for rice wine, and cutting down the sesame oil to just a tablespoon of the toasted kind, which we added at the end. For deep flavor, we marinated the chicken in the soy sauce and sherry along with a touch of brown sugar. Finally, skipping browning allowed the chicken and the sauce to cook in about 30 minutes, making this recipe a viable weeknight choice.