How I make a traditional Cantonese dish in the UK: salt-baked chicken
Guangdong, located in the south of China, with abundant rainfall, evergreen in all seasons and plentiful natural resources, the culture of food is diverse. Generally speaking, Guangzhou cuisine is famous for its original taste, Chaozhou cuisine is well-known for its delicacy and elegance, while Hakka cuisine is salty.”No chicken, no banquet” is a catchphrase of Cantonese people. When Cantonese treat their friends a meal, there must be a chicken dish. For thousands of years, chicken represents a blessing of auspiciousness, joy as well as rich nutritional value. As a Cantonese, since I left my hometown to study in the UK, I always can’t help myself to think about Cantonese chicken dishes.
A traditional Cantonese dish: salt-baked chicken
One of the famous Cantonese dishes is salt-baked chicken. With golden skin and sweet-smelling meat, the cooked chicken is mouth-watering. This dish is not only delicious but also has an interesting history.
It is said that from ancient times a merchant who sale salt bought a chicken and was going to bring it home, share with his families in the Spring Festival. Considered it was a long way, a live chicken is not easy to carry, so he had the chicken slaughter and coating with salt. However, in the middle of his journey, there was nowhere to find food and the merchant was so hungry that he can only wrap the chicken with paper and paste on the mud into the fire to cooked the chicken. To his surprise, this made chicken taste great. This kind of cooking way was popular since then.
The traditional salt-baked chicken is made with rock salt, which is complicated and takes a long time, but the chicken is delicious. After the chicken is killed, removed viscera and cool dry, the chicken skin will be coated with salt and sand ginger, and then fill the chicken cavity into salt, sand ginger, scallions and star anise. Wrapping tightly by sandpaper, the whole chicken is buried in the hot salt pile, finally, apply slow fire about half an hour until cooked.
a simple version of salt-baked chicken everyone can make
Just describing the salt-baked chicken I have already been greedy. Fortunately, it is not so hard to cook the dish in the UK because you can find Chicken easily in the food market. Here’s how to make a delicious salt-baked chicken.
Preparing time: 10 minutes;
Cooking time: around 40 minutes;
Yield: 1–2 people
Ingredients: a whole chicken leg;8 slices ginger; scallion; Oil, salt, and cooking win
Instruction
- Wash the fresh chicken legs and dry them with a kitchen towel;
2. Take 3 pieces of ginger and cut them into pieces. Sprinkle the ginger and salt on the whole chicken leg. Store overnight in the fridge to make the chicken absorb the flavour. (or stand still for 15–20 minutes)；
3. Ginger cut into slices, scallion cut into sections, pour a little cooking wine in the rice cooker, put the chicken legs into it and press the button to start; When the rice cooker finish the cook, turn the chicken legs over and cook them again；
4. After finishing cooking, you can tear the chicken leg into small pieces and enjoy your meal；
That’s it. Isn’t it sounds simple and delicious? Try it some other time. I will write a series of stories and recipe about Chinese food. If you are interested in it, please follow me!
