food {love} : chicken poro-poro

hello! welcome to another edition of food love! i'm definitely into cooking healthy japanes-esque, but simple dishes and hope to introduce many more to you through this column.

today's recipe on food love is chicken poro-poro! now you might be thinking, "what the heck is 'poro-poro'?" let me explain. in japanese a lot of words are onomatopoeia's and poro-poro is one of them. it literally is used when something is crumbling apart. in this case, i decided to name this dish chicken 'poro-poro' because the meat of the chicken literally just falls off the bone. so soft!

hope you enjoy this dish as much as i do! here we go~

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chicken poro-poro (2 servings)

ingredients:
2 whole chicken legs with skin attached
2~3 cloves of garlic (even more if you like garlic!)
1 half-thumb sized ginger
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup mirin
1/3~1/2 cup water
(extra ingredients if you want some veggies)
2~4 red and/or yellow potatoes
carrots (as many as you like)

directions:
1. crush + chop garlic into little bits. (it can be sliced if you like them a bit bigger) chop the ginger in the same way and leave to the side. do not mix the two.

2. wash + wipe chicken legs and set aside.

3. chop potatoes into smaller squares and carrots into similar sized pieces

4. in a deep, rounded-edged fry pan, warm up some olive oil on high heat and once the oil is warm, throw in 1/2 of the garlic that you had chopped earlier and fry them up a bit.

5. after the garlic begins to turn a little in color, bring down the heat to med-high (not to char the garlic pieces) and put the chicken legs into the fry pan, skin facing down. once the chicken skin becomes a bit crispy, flip them over and cook the other side.

6. if both sides of the chicken are a bit crispy, pour in the soy sauce, mirin and water. then sprinkle the minced garlic + ginger into the mix. at this point, add the carrots + potatoes. make sure all ingredients are floating inside the broth.

7. bring the heat down to a mid-low and cover the fry pan with a lid. i usually cover it up with an aluminum foil and wrap the edges to create a little aluminum hat around the fry pan opening.

8. let simmer for about 30 mins. then flip over and let simmer for about another 15~20 mins. the longer you can simmer the chicken, the softer the meat will be.

9. once the chicken meat is coming off the bone (you will be able to see the meat falling off the bone), it's ready to eat!

serve with some steamed rice + a side of boiled spinach or other greens with a dash of yuzu ponzu on top! dinner is served~