Steamed or poached chicken (鸡肉 jīròu) has always had a special place in my family, particularly throughout the 15 days of Lunar New Year. The dish must always be presented whole to signify completeness, prosperity, togetherness of the family and everlasting joy. It’s customary for Chinese families to have this dish as it was considered a luxury in the olden days.
I used to get really nervous when I had to carve the chicken. You see, this is a Cantonese dish so it’s a prerequisite to know how to dismantle and present it on a platter in a classic 8-piece configuration: 2 breasts, 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings. Everything else goes in between, and every piece must be easily grabbed by chopsticks. There’s a saying, “yau tau yau mei”, which means you have a head and a tail on the platter, one on each end, symbolising a beginning and end. It takes skill to chop the bird into bite size pieces without tearing the skin, with a sharp cleaver. I hope I did justice to my forefather’s chopping skills because I was very happy with the end result, which you can see in the shot above. I usually opt for village-bred free range chicken fed on corn because it has naturally “golden” yellow skin which is very appealing and auspicious for most Chinese people.
Here’s the recipe for an auspicious and aromatic poached chicken which you too, can replicate at home. Scroll all the way down for the recipe!
Serves 4 – 6 pax
Ingredients
- One medium whole free-range chicken, or 3 pieces (750g) whole chicken legs
- 1.5 litres boiling water
- 3 shallots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2cm ginger, peeled and smashed
- 2 stalks spring onion
- 10g tong kwai (a type of Chinese medicinal herb; scientific name ‘Angelica sinensis’)
- Cilantro leaves for garnishing
- 1 tbsp salt to taste
- 1 tbsp chicken stock broth
- 1/2 tsp sugar to taste
Steps
- Rinse chicken, then use coarse salt to scrub the chicken skin to remove any residue. For a whole chicken, I’d scrub all over, including the interior. Remove any remaining feathers and guts, then rinse again.
- Lower chicken into a pot of boiling water, legs down and head up. Cover the pot and bring back to a boil.
- Immediately remove the pot from heat and allow chicken to soak in the stock for 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked.
- Remove chicken from the stock and soak in a basin of ice cold water for 25 minutes. While chicken is cooling in the water, prepare the aromatic soup. Bring the previous chicken stock to a boil again, and add shallots, garlic, ginger, spring onions and tong kwai. Cook for 15-20 minutes. Add seasoning ingredients and allow the fragrant stock to cool.
- Take out chicken from the basin of cold water and drain well. Return the chicken to the fragrant stock soup in the pot and let chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours.
- Remove and chop the chicken, then transfer to a serving plate. Bring the fragrant stock to a quick boil and serve. You can add some blanched noodles and vegetables such as bok choy or choy sum to the stock and serve it along with the chicken—makes an excellent one-dish meal!
