Huang Men Ji (Chinese Braised Chicken) · Lee Yeon-bok

Mix the braising liquid first: in a bowl combine mat-ganjang (3스푼), mirin (2스푼), oyster sauce (3스푼), minced ginger (1/2스푼) and 400 ml of water. Set it by the stove.

💡 Premixing means the sauce hits the pan as one smooth liquid. Adding six things one at a time to a hot pan of chicken guarantees you forget one — usually the ginger.

Cut the chicken thigh into bite-size pieces, and cut the green onion and potato into big rough chunks.

Set a pan over medium-high heat with 3스푼 of oil and add the chicken, skin side down where you can.

Fry 5–7 minutes without fussing at it, until the outside is golden and no pink is left on the surface.

💡 Leave it alone. Chicken releases from the pan by itself once a crust forms — poke it early and you tear the skin off and lose the browning you are here for.

Add the yellow bean paste (2스푼) and stir it around in the hot oil, coating every piece of chicken, for about 1 minute.

💡 Frying the paste in oil rather than dropping it into liquid is what wakes it up — the raw beany edge cooks off and a deep roasted smell comes up. Do not let it go past a minute or it turns bitter.

When the chicken has taken on the paste's amber colour all over, pour in the premixed braising liquid.

Add the chunks of green onion, the star anise and the Sichuan chilies, then the potato.

Bring it to a simmer and cook about 15 minutes, until a chopstick slides into the potato with no resistance.

💡 The potato sets the clock, not the chicken — thigh meat was already cooked at step 4. Big chunks that hold their shape are the point, so check at 12 minutes if you cut them small.

While it simmers, halve the peppers, scrape out the cores and seeds, and cut 1/2 of each into bite-size pieces.

Pull the bok choy apart leaf by leaf, wash it well, and trim the very tip of each root end. Cut the base off the enoki and pull the bundle into smaller clumps.

Drop the peppers, bok choy and enoki into the pot and cook only until they wilt — 1–2 minutes, no more.

💡 Beginner warning: this is where a Korean cook's instinct to 'let it all boil together' ruins the dish. Everything else has had half an hour; these have had two minutes on purpose. Bok choy boiled soft goes khaki and slimy.

When the liquid has reduced to a shallow, glossy pool around the chicken, kill the heat.

💡 Aim for jajak-jajak — shallow, not soupy. There should be enough to spoon over rice but not enough to drink.

Turn it out onto a plate and serve hot with rice.