It took me too long to realize. What was missing in my life was a man. Specifically, a poultry butcher.

Yes, I learned to carve a whole chicken in culinary school, but bad student that I was, found it too much of a chore. After graduation I rarely brought home whole chickens to dissect. Instead, at the supermarket, I made a beeline for neatly packaged drumsticks and wings.

In China's wet markets, however, you can select your chicken from the poultry guys, who will pluck, carve, and bag your bird in a matter of minutes. The more expensive chickens at the wet markets are free-range, ol' skool-style, raised by local farmers who let them run around their neighborhoods and feed them grain or table scraps (consider the alternative.) The cheaper birds at the wet markets, not to mention any packaged chicken you'll find at supermarkets, are factory-farmed. These are what Chinese people mean when they refer to "chicken that has no chicken taste."

So, a poultry butcher is a lazy cook's best friend. Especially when it comes to making stupidly easy but insanely addictive dishes like Three Cup Chicken.

A Taiwanese dish, three cup chicken consists of bite-sized chicken (bone-in) braised with equal parts soy sauce, white rice wine, and sesame oil. The combination, plus some sugar and a potent amount of garlic and ginger, eliminates the need for any spices. An essential ingredient to add at the end is Thai or oriental basil, with adds a mild clove-like flavor to the dish.

And it takes only 15 minutes from start to end.

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Three Cup Chicken

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 cup sesame oil, divided in half

1 whole 2 to 2 1/2 pound chicken, chopped to bite-sized pieces

10 cloves garlic, chopped

10 pieces thinly sliced ginger

1/2 cup light soy sauce

1/2 cup white rice wine

2 tablespoons white sugar

2 cups fresh Thai or oriental basil

Instructions