Chicken Hekka

Oh my gosh! This was just like my Grandmother would make when I visited her after a long week of College classes. I will definitely make this dish again. I need to cut the soy sauce, wine and sugar in half next time I make this dish! It was great with white rice! My husband enjoyed it too! I’m so glad I found this recipe.

Didn’t have any watercress, used Liebfraumilch instead of the Japanese wine. Still very good stir-fry.

I’ve made this and I’ve eaten others who have made it. The bottom line is the chicken ,(thighs are best), sauce mixture and watercress, ginger root (sliced or grated), yellow onion and tofu (medium) and long rice. (Bean thread rice) are the highlights of this dish. The rest of ingredients are up to your taste. Bamboo shoots, chestnuts, mushrooms (Japanese kine), etc. I saw many reviews that added celery and carrot. What!??? No way! Unless u want to. It’s all up to your taste. I like a little more gravy so I add a little chicken stock or broth depending what I have on hand. But it’s very delicious. Thanks so much!!

Made per recipe, added bamboo shoots (canned) and bean sprouts (canned) and green zuccinni sliced very thin. Was not too sweet. Would also be great made with Shrimp, instead of Chicken.

I did make the following changes after reading reviews. Cut sauce to half cup each sugar, soy sauce, sweet wine. Didn’t have fresh ginger instead used ground ginger sprinkled on chicken while stir frying then added snow peas in place of mushrooms and bok choy in place of the watercress. Sprinkled garlic powder. At end added a few sprinkles of ginger oil. We really liked this dish. Very flavorful!! Definitely make again!!

This is a local favorite in Hawaii! A very easy dinner with great leftovers. I like to prepare all the veggies the night before, so when dinner time rolls around all I do is throw things into a big pot and let the magic happen. Mirin, sugar, shoyu mixture is a must. I have made this dish without ginger, but it does add a little kick. The smaller you cut the chicken, the faster it cooks. When I’m rushing, I don’t bother to julienne the carrots, slices work just as well. I like to throw in some cubed firm tofu for a little more protein. Final touches would be a sprinkling of green onions. This can be eaten hot or cold, for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My go to dinner once a week!!! Enjoy 🙂

I found this particular recipe to be extremely sweet, and would recommend only 2/3 a cup of sugar, and to also add a few tablespoons of sake to even out the sweetness. overall this recipe is not to hard to cook it just takes timing is all.

This was delicious.. I cut back on the sugar and that was the right thing to do. Added garlic because I always do. I had some enoki and wood ear mushrooms so I used them in this. Couldn’t find rice noodles, so I used Udon.

I enjoyed it. Will make again

Use the sauce recipe, tweaked to your preferences, for whatever chicken-veggie mixture you like. It’s a delicious combination.

This is a easy and yummy dinner. I used shitake mushrooms (cause I love the flavor) and “Napa” cabbage, as I don’t care for watercress. Before adding the shoyu (soy sauce) mixture, TASTE IT!!! If it’s too sweet add a little water! Also if it’s to “runny” for your taste add a little corn starch! This is super good with steaming hot, white sticky rice (japanese rice)!!! I think people who gave this a poor review are not used to asain food.

Not bad but definitely boring. Maybe some garlic would help but I won’t go through making this again…

This recipe is alright,but I found it a bit sweet.

I thought this was just OK. I cut down the sugar, and added sugar snap peas and baby corn in addition to the veggies in the recipe. I did use the noodles as directed. I was expecting more of a ‘stir fry’, but I ended up with a ton of sauce — I had to use a slotted spoon to plate up the dish, even after letting it reduce somewhat. Even with the noodles, my husband felt that this needed to be served with rice. The chicken flavor was OK, but it was far too much trouble to make for the results that I got.

we loved this recipe.I did change it according to everyone advice. I cut the recipe to half for 2 of us and still leftovers. I used alot of fresh garlic,more ginger,added alot of vegetbles,zucchni,small brocoli bits,peapods,green onion & regular onion.I think iway add more spice to it and some hot pepper flakes next time. will make again.

Delicious! Chicken Hekka is a local favorite here in Hawaii, so I was surprised to see a recipe here. This recipe is incredible, the flavors and textures combine very well to create a very tasty and comforting dish. I made only minimal changes: used chicken thighs instead of breasts, reduced the amount of sugar to about 1/3 cup (my Mirin was very sweet to begin with), and used about 4 big slices of ginger instead of grating it (left them in the pot the whole time.) Don’t leave the Mirin out! Its flavor is an integral part of the recipe. And don’t skimp on the watercress either, watercress always shrinks when you cook it. This recipe will be a permanent addition to my collection.

delish! we added major vegetables though- sugar snap peas, bean sprouts, zucchini, celery, whole spinach leaves, garlic, tons of button mushrooms sliced thick, etc. We also used a larger portion of ginger and just sliced it into chunks, so that we didn’t have to do all the grating, squeezing, and picking out of fibers. Too much work! ginger is cheap! Dont forget to soak the noodles (bring water to a boil, remove from heat and add noodles, drain them when you’re done with everything else.) We’ll be making this again!!!

Following some of the recommendations I read, I added garlic to the ginger before browning. Also, I reduced the sugar by half. For vegetables I also added snow peas, bean sprouts and celery instead of bamboo shoots. We enjoyed the flavors, although I would like for the sauce to be a little thicker. I’m thinking next time I will try adding a little corn starch to thicken at end of cooking time. Also, instead of regular onion, I think I will add green onion for more color.

This recipe has been revised. The original submission called for soaking the rice noodles, and this step was not included in the published recipe. Soak the noodles as directed on the package before adding them to the dish.

The flavor on this is very good. It’s very close to my favorite teriyaki restaurant’s recipe. I had a very hard time though with the rice noodles. I had a bad feeling about them as soon as I took them out of the package – they were very unwieldy! The directions say to soak them before you put them in your recipe but I ignored it because it didn’t say to do so in this recipe. Bad move! They were way too undercooked and the vegetables were overcooked. Next time I’ll probably just do regular pasta or soba noodles. Overall, everyone who ate it liked it and the noodles are the only thing I’d change. I also substituted celery for bamboo shoots and spinach for the watercress since I didn’t have either on hand. They worked fine. Oh, and I also added a couple cloves of garlic with the ginger. I will definitely try this again.

This was a very good recipe that my younger brother and sister also really liked. I added yellow squash, waterchestnuts, and snow pea pods and cut the amount of sake in half. I could not find the long rice noodles and served it over rice instead, very delicious!