Huli Huli Chicken (Tropical Hawaiian Chicken)

1. Chicken – boneless thigh is best for lovely caramelisation when cooked, but breast is very good too.

2. Pineapple juice – must use canned or bottled/vac packed from aisle, not the fridge. DO NOT use real, fresh pineapple juice (ie fridge bottle, unsweetened) or puree fresh pineapple – pineapple contains a very strong tenderiser which will over tenderise the chicken (the tenderising agent gets killed when canned or bottled with long shelf life).

PRO TIP:Use a can of sliced pineapple innatural juice (unsweetened). 1 430g/14oz can has almost exactly 3/4 cup of juice, then I use the slices for garnish. (Golden Circle pineapple slices in natural juice – Australia).

If your can is slightly short on juice, that’s ok – use whatever you can extract (as long as you have 1/2 cup or so, that’s enough).

If you can only get sweetened juice, reduce sugar by half. If you can only get canned pineapple slices in syrup, skip the sugar completely.

Alternative: Use a can of pineapple PIECES and use the pieces to make pineapple fried rice, excellent side dish for this. Double duty!

3. Ginger/garlic grating tip – if you have a microplane, use that with unpeeled ginger and garlic. As you grate, the skin just kind of naturally peels to the side, leaving you with just the flesh grated.

Jar paste will work fine too but for this recipe, the fresh ginger flavour really does make it special.

4. Sherry or Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing wine) – the secret ingredient that makes this extra good. I’ve tried it with and without – and the difference is noticeable.

SUBSTITUTES: Mirin (reduce sugar by 1 tbsp), low sodium chicken stock (increase to 1/2 cup).

5. Nutrition per serving, assuming 6 servings. Assumed half the marinade ended up on or in the chicken – in reality it’s probably less. Reduce sodium by using low salt soy and ketchup.