Chinese Chickens Recipes - Salt-Baked Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 3/4 -3 lb. young roasting chicken (undrawn)

• cooking salt

• 2-3 thin slices fresh ginger

• 1 spring onion

• tiny pinch each salt and Ve-Tsin (M.S.G.)

• 1 teaspoon brandy

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Method:

1. For this dish, you will need a casserole in which the chicken will not be lost but in which there is enough room for the hot salt below, around and above the bird. An enameled iron casserole is ideal, because it heats well and retains the heat, but a strong, earthenware one will do.

2. Let the casserole be heating gently in the oven and the coarse kitchen salt in a wide stout pan on top of the cooker. There should be enough salt to encase the bird completely in due course. Stir the salt to heat it evenly.

3. Draw and clean the chicken. Very finely chop the ginger and onion. Add the seasonings and brandy and work the mixture well into the inside of the chicken. Wrap it in strong greaseproof paper so that the juices, if any, are retained.

4. By this time, the cooking salt should be very hot. Spoon enough of it into the heated casserole to cover the bottom to a depth of 1/2-inch (3/4-inch would be better; it depends on the depth of the casserole).

5. Lay the wrapped bird, breast downwards, on top. Trickle in hot salt to surround the chicken on all sides and top with salt to a depth of 1/2-inch. Put on the lid and leave for 5 minutes.

6. Remove the chicken, reheat the salt and repeat the process four times - that is, five time in all. Remove the chicken. Cut off the wings and legs and chop them across into mouth-sized pieces. Carve the breast diagonally into similar sized pieces, retaining the skin, and serve.

Note: This is a very old way of preparing chicken and well worth the slight work involved. Salt-baked chicken is possible even when there is only an electric hotplate or gas ring as the cooking equipment One could serve boiled or fried rice with the chicken because, while it is cooking in the hot salt, the hotplate or ring is free.

A flame-proof earthenware or glass casserole could be used but it would be as well to have an asbestos mat between it and the heat. Incidentally, do not ever rest an earthenware or glass casserole on even a slightly damp surface.