Homemade Chicken Jerky ( Bak Kwa )

 Homemade Chinese Chicken Jerky (Bak Kwa) 肉干

700g minced chicken ( from 3 boneless chicken breast )
120g sugar
2tbsp light soy sauce
1/2tbsp fish sauce
1tbsp oyster sauce
2tbsp dark caramel sauce or substitute with dark thick sweet soya sauce / indonesia kicap manis
1tbsp Chinese five spices powder
A dash of Pepper
1/2tsp salt or to taste
3tbsp honey
Cooking oil for brushing during grilling


Method
1. Blend chicken breast into minced meat. Put all ingredients in a big bowl and start mixing them with a pair of chopsticks. Stir the mixture in one direction until the meat becomes gluey otherwise meat will break out.  Store in the fridge for few hours or over night.

2. No need to grease baking tray, spread the marinated meat with a spatula or rolling pin thinly on the tray.

3.Pre-heated oven at 160C, grill for 20mins. Remove from oven, at this stage, the meat has come together firmly, slice the meat at your desired size with a knife, pizza cutter or scissor place them on the same tray to continue grilling. ( If you don't want to cook all of your marinated meat, you may store them at this stage in the freezer for later consume. Defrost and grill before serve, you can charcoal grill, even better. )

4. Increase the oven temperature to 250c set time to 30 minutes. Adjust your oven temperature accordingly, you know your oven better !!

5. Use oven grill, you can use Top Heat grill only or Top and Bottom grill.

6. 1st of all, Brush a thin layer of cooking oil to both side.  You just need to keep flipping over the meat every 2-3 minutes until it is all cook evenly. Dish up. Do not over cook the meat or else will turn rubbery texture.

( Baking chicken bak kwa can be very crucial, I have learned that chicken meat cooked very fast during my 1st batch of grilling and i failed to achieve the perfect bak kwa texture, it was dried, rubbery and hard. because i have over cooked following the recipe time and method.  

So on my 2nd batch and the following meat, i just do my own way of cooking without following the original recipe time and method of cooking, is just about our own sense of cooking.  So 1st thing i do is brush the meat a layer of thin cooking oil, I don't allow the meat sit on the grill like the 1st time, but i flipping through the meat every 3 minutes or 2 minutes to prevent the meat from burning too quickly, turn hard, dry or over cooked.  So when i do the 1st flip over, i brush another layer of cooking oil, let it grill for about 2 minutes and flip over again do the same steps until the meat is perfectly cook through and with slight burnt.  

Is ok to dish up before the grilling time finish.

Make 1 container.

ah..ha!!