My Jewish Mother’s soya chicken.

The Cooking From Home project has provided a great opportunity to share my own culinary heritage and to learn how to cook treasured recipes from others. I’ve made so many latkes (fried potato cakes) over the years that I could do them on my sleep; along with chicken soup and kneidlach they represent much of what I understand as Jewish life. Chicken soup is classic comfort food while for me, latkes, being a little fiddly and very messy to make, were a real treat.

I was thrilled to hear that after I’d cooked them for a trial run for CFH, our Malaysian cook Lay, had gone home and made a batch for her family – the joy of multiculturalism! Lay had made some superb curry puffs and gave each of us a little plastic device used to shape them, solving one of life’s mysteries for me. I’d be embarrassed to tell Lay the variety of left overs I have since made into puffs – if not always curry puffs!

But this delightful sharing got me thinking of one of my family’s favourite dishes: soya chicken. As good migrants do, my parents (Dad was South African while Mum had lived the first half of her life in England before emigrating to South Africa) befriended anyone who befriended them. My mother was an enthusiastic cook, happy to give most anything a go and to feed anyone who turned up at her table. Her mother-in-law famously commented: “Well, with Sheila quantity you will get”. Yes, Granny was a dragon who hadn’t set foot in the kitchen herself for decades. I will concede my mother was not a sophisticated cook, but she was a good cook, with a helluva repertoire – pressed tongue anyone?

Among Dad’s innumerable fishing buddies was the first ABC (Australian born Chinese) I ever met. Vince was a pharmacist and big game fisherman, while his wife Norma, who hailed from Hong Kong, was a fashion buyer for Grace Brothers and was the most glamorous person young Felicity had ever set eyes on.

So Norma must have cooked her amazing soya chicken for my folks and then shared the recipe. Unlike other soya chicken recipes I’ve seen since, where the chicken is marinated and then baked in the oven, this recipe creates a sticky black molten sauce the chicken is cooked in. Mum always cooked the chicken whole, as Norma would have done but I usually use chicken pieces so there’s more of that lovely sauce coating it.

But the point is that you put a whole clove of garlic in the mixture, so thanks to lovely Norma, garlic finally appeared in my mother’s kitchen – oh happy day. Don’t be shocked, we’re probably talking 1965/66 and Mum was making curries with Keen’s curry powder and sultanas!

I can’t call this a recipe because I do just splash in my quantities – but it will work regardless.

Norma’s/Mum’s/My Soya Chicken

In a large pot bring to the boil:

1 cup soy sauce

½ cup vegetable oil (not olive oil)

¼ cup honey

1 large peeled clove of garlic.

When it has started to boil a froth will form on the top and you want to keep it hot enough to keep that going.

I put the pieces in and cook, keeping the mixture frothing but not boiling over, for 20 minutes.

If you decide to do the whole chicken give it 20 minutes on front back and each side. Fab with rice and a little stir fried veg of course but very good served cold the next day. I generally just make this recipe with a kilo of chicken legs.

These days I only use Kikkoman soya or GF teriyaki if cooking for GF friends but that very cheap Chinese soya sauce will provide a blacker, slicker looking product. It may also give you cancer, I’m not sure, which is why I use Kikkoman.