Sesame Soy Braised Chicken

I love chicken, but I was just stumped on what to do with chicken breast a couple weeks ago.  Not only was I stumped on how to cook the chicken, I could not figure out how to plate the chicken!  I have been following a home chef on Instagram for the past couple months and she recently went home to visit and took all these great pictures of all the delicious food that she had eaten at restaurants.  I find her food very inspiring.  I happened to stumble upon a soy braised chicken that she had posted at a Chinese restaurant and that sounded delicious.  

So for dinner that night, I made my own sesame soy braised chicken breast with a variety of aromatics.  For the braising liquid, I used sesame oil, soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, with ginger, onion, garlic, cinnamon, cloves and oregano.  I let the liquid simmer to bring all the flavors together for about ten minutes.  I dropped in my chicken breast on medium high for about eight minutes and shut the heat down to low and covered it and just let it braise in the liquid.  

As I let the chicken stew in the sesame-soy liquid, I prepared my garnishes which included poached squash and zuchinni and pickled some red onions and radishes.  

After about 30 minutes of the chicken soaking in the liquid, I pulled it to let it cool a little bit before I sliced it.  The soy gave the skin such a beautiful color.  As I sliced the chicken breast, I noticed how juicy it was.  The flavors penetrated the chicken breast so well without drying it out.  

The overall flavors of the dish worked out very well together.  The vegetables were poached in a citrus flavored liquid.  The radishes and red onions gave the dish and amazing presentation with its bright colors.  At the last moment, I candied some ginger to top the chicken.