The Sinosphere · Volume 29, The Delta, the Salt Road and the Mountain Behind It
Jiaohuaji, beggar's chicken
Changshu, Jiangsu
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 6 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Changshu, Jiangsu, adopted into Hangzhou's banquet repertoire only in the 1950s. A survival technique refined into a state-banquet dish.
As tradition built it
Serves 4 to 6. Marinate and stuff 30 minutes, bake 4 to 6 hours.
Ingredients
- 1 (about 1.7 kg) whole chicken, gutted
- 2 tbsp oil, 50 g cooking wine, 5 g salt, 25 g spring onion, 10 g ginger oil, cooking wine, salt, spring onion, ginger
- 50 g ham, 30 g shiitake mushroom, 20 g dried shrimp, 50 g bamboo shoot slices ham slices, shiitake mushroom, dried shrimp, bamboo shoot slices
- to cover pork caul fat
- 3 to 4 leaves fresh or dried lotus leaf
- about 5 kg, enough to fully encase the bird kneaded clay or a substitute casing (see the modernist version)
Method
- Marinate the whole bird inside and out with oil, cooking wine, salt, spring onion and ginger.
- Stuff the cavity with ham, shiitake, dried shrimp, bamboo shoot slices, and more spring onion, ginger and wine.
- Wrap tightly in pork caul fat, then in lotus leaf, then tie into a firm, pillow-like shape with kitchen string.
- Coat the exterior thoroughly in kneaded yellow clay, sealing it completely.
- Roast over an open fire, or in a very hot oven, for 4 to 6 hours, until the clay is fully hardened and dry.
- Crack the hardened clay open at the table; the feathers, if any remain, come away with the shell.
What a modern chef changes
The Big Green Egg as a genuinely better clay substitute, not a compromise.
Rung 6, applied to heat retention rather than a ferment
Method
- Set the Egg up for indirect heat with a ConvEGGtor, running a steady 225 to 300°F: the ceramic shell mechanically replicates what the clay casing is prized for, insulating, even, moist heat held over a long, slow cook, arguably more reliably than an unfamiliar hand-packed clay shell.
- Skip the clay entirely and rely on the caul fat and lotus leaf wrapping alone, sealed in a Dutch oven or directly on the Egg's grate, since the clay's real job, sealing in moisture and aroma, is already being done by the ceramic cooker itself.
- Source dried lotus leaves properly rather than substituting another wrapping leaf; the leaf does genuine, irreplaceable flavour work independent of whatever holds the heat.