Braised Korean Chicken in Soy Ginger Lemon Sauce (오븐닭 Oven Dak) (2024)

Korean Chicken Braised in Soy Ginger Sauce (Oven Dak 오븐닭)

Korean Chicken in Soy Ginger Lemon Sauce. You may say..hmm… Korean?? Yes, you guessed it. This is actually not what you call a classic Korean food. 🙂 Originally, I started out making this Braised Korean Chicken dish with another recipe in mind – one that is called Oven Dak (오븐닭). Which literally means “Oven Chicken”. Oven Dak (or Oven Chicken) was a special dish that was always served at a family friend (Dr. Ok Gill Kim)’s home when I was growing up. Read about Dr. Kim in my Radish Namul post.

If there is one thing that I wish Korean cooking or recipes used more of – it is the oven. Oven is such a wonderful thing. It may take a little longer to cook in the oven but once you have the right temperature, you can set it and forget it!!🙂

So, I’m always looking for more ways to cook Korean food (like my Baked Yakwa) using the oven. This Korean chicken or Oven Dak (maybe it’s more Asian Chicken?? )-which even has the word “oven” in its name-was something I always wanted to try. But it has been many years that our family had this Oven Korean Chicken and it took a while for me to gather the information from my sisters (specifically sister #2 because she spent the most time with Dr. Kim).

If you are interested in Korean history in the 70’s and also want to know more about Dr. Kim, here are some quick stories to share –

Stories of Dr. Ok Gill Kim, 8th President of Ewha (1961-1979)

In short, I had the honor of meeting her several times during my teenage and college years. I even had the privilege of leading one of her Gosari Summer Camps (고사리 캠프) for kids as the main counselor and organizer when I was a sophom*ore in college. I had no experience with such things but she believed in me enough to just hand over a whole summer program at her private but very public residence in the Munkyeong Saejae (문경세재) mountains in Kyung Sang Buk Do (경상북도) province. If there was a wikipedia entry (she totally deserves one), I would just link it here but sadly there is none.

I say her ‘private but very public’ residence because the doors to her home and gardens were always open to anyone who wanted to visit, eat and sleep, as long as they needed it. Although she would gently buy firmly tell people to also leave whenever she felt it was time. 🙂

She was a true educator with unmeasurable love for her students. The late 70’s in Korea was a time when people were rising up against a regime that many thought were too oppressive. There was no freedom of press and people’s rights were not always fully respected. One time when hundreds of Ewha students were demonstrating and wanted to march out onto the streets outside of the university, she stood in front of the huge crowd, telling them to stop and said “If you are going to go out, you will have to step over my body first”. And the students stopped. At that time, there was a huge group of riot police waiting to overwhelm them with tear gas, often times arresting them, even physically hurting them in the process. So it was crucial that students stayed inside the campus.

On the other hand, she understood the frustrations of the students and encouraged them to protest peacefully within the campus where they could be protected. Another time when 4500 demonstrating students finally got outside of campus, Dr. Kim stood at the front of the student crowd, in between the police and the students, trying to protect them. And after over 5 hours of non-stop demonstrations, she persuaded the students back into the campus and led the students and faculty in an all night vigil of prayer. All through the night, Dr. Kim and 200+ faculty and staff listened to all that the students had to say – praying and fasting together until the morning. Finally, around 5 am, Dr. Kim walked onto the podium and the entire group of 4000+ students rose up in a thunderous applause, expressing their gratitude and utmost respect for all that she had done for them.

Back to our Korean Chicken…

Oven Dak was one of the standard dishes that was served to guests visiting Dr Kim’s home. The marinade for this Korean Oven Chicken recipe was made with nothing but ginger, soy sauce and oil, because for some reason, Dr. Kim did not like garlic. Can you imagine? A Korean – not liking garlic?? But she did NOT. And so, all food served at her house had no garlic and also no sugar since she had diabetes. Now, one would think her food was probably not that delicious but it was actually amazingly good. Even her Kimchi was made without garlic if I remember correctly. Hmm…I gotta try that someday..

Anyway, so I started out with a simple marinade of ginger, soy sauce and oil. But then I went off and started to do my own thing and here is the result. I guess we should call this Korean fusion or modern Korean food. All that matters is that it’s yummy and simple to make, right?

At dinner time, my daughter told me – “Mom, it’s surprisingly good!!”

Well, a happy kid makes a happy mom. 🙂

Braised Korean Chicken in Soy Ginger Lemon Sauce

Servings: 2-3 Cooking Time: 50 minutes Inactive Time: 2 hr Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients

• 2 lb bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or legs (6 pieces)
• marinade:
  • 3 Tbs soy sauce (Jin Ganjang)
  • 3 Tbs white wine
  • 1 Tbs mirin or cooking sake
  • 1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp fresh ginger, chopped
  • 1 tsp sugar (optional)
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 Tbs of chopped chives or young green onions
• juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 Tbs mirin
• 2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
• cooked rice or leftover rice warmed up

1. Mix soy sauce, wine, oil and ginger (add 1~2 tsp sugar or other sweeteners if you like sweet flavors).

   

2. Clean chicken thighs and legs. Remove excess fat and also poke a few times with your knife.

   

3. Massage chicken with your hands in the soy ginger sauce and leave to marinate for 2 hours at room temperature.

   

   You can also marinate overnight or up to 2 days in the refrigerator. If it’s marinated overnight, be sure to leave chicken at room temp for 20 minutes before cooking – to remove the chill.

4. Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C). In a heavy (oven safe) pan or dutch oven large enough to hold all thighs/legs in a single layer, heat 2 Tbs EVOO over medium high heat. When oil is hot, sear chicken pieces, skin side down for 4-5 minutes or more until golden brown. Turn over and brown the other side for another 4 minutes until golden brown. Remove chicken and set aside.

   

5. With the pan still hot, add onion slices and lemon slices. I had some leftover purple onions so I mixed them in.

   

   Cook until onions have wilted and brown bits on bottom of pan have loosened. 5-7 minutes. Turn heat off.

   See Also

   Nourishing White Bean and Lemon SoupTraditional German Red Cabbage (Rotkohl) - House of Nash EatsAvgolemono (Greek Chicken Pasta Soup)Nancy's Chopped Salad Recipe on Food52

6. Place chicken pieces, skin-side up on top of onion mixture. Pour juice of 1/2 lemon and 1 Tbs of sake or mirin.
7. Cover and transfer pan to oven and bake for 40 – 45 minutes. And here is how it comes out!

   

8. Serve onions, chicken on top of rice and sprinkle with chopped chives.

   

   I picked the chives from my garden so I decided to leave the root intact.

Notes

• I used meyer lemons because that’s what I have in my garden. Meyer lemons are less sour and sweeter than regular lemons. So if you can get some meyer lemons that will make it even better!
• The rice is actually some leftover saffron rice from my mother’s day dinner at a Persian restaurant. But you can use Korean rice or any other rice you have on hand. Serve with some salad or Korean cucumber salad and you should have a fabulous meal!!
• You can substitute Chicken Breast but with skin on. And use HIGH temperature for LESS time.Bake at 425°F (218°C) for 17-18 minutes for about 8 x 4 inch size breasts, cut crosswise into 2 thinner cuts. For smaller sizes, reduce baking time by 2-3 minutes.

Enjoy!

JinJoo