Cantonese Chicken

A whole chicken scalded, glazed and left to dry overnight before it is roasted.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, about 1.6 kg
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon five spice powder
• 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 4 slices ginger
• 2 spring onions, halved

Glaze

• 2 tablespoons maltose, or honey
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 200 ml boiling water

Method

1. Mix the salt, five spice and pepper and rub it inside the cavity only, then put the ginger and spring onions in there. Nothing goes on the skin: anything on the outside stops it drying.
2. Stir the maltose and vinegar into the boiling water until dissolved.
3. Hold the chicken over the sink and ladle the boiling glaze over it, all over, several times. The skin will tighten and change colour as the proteins contract — that tightening is what later gives a crisp rather than leathery skin.
4. Hang the chicken, or sit it on a rack, in front of a fan or in the fridge uncovered, and leave it to dry overnight. TWELVE HOURS OF DRYING is the step that cannot be hurried and the one most often skipped; the skin should feel like parchment and look matte.
5. Heat the oven to 200C. Roast the chicken on a rack, breast up, for 35 minutes.
6. Turn the oven to 230C for a final 12 minutes, watching it. The skin should blister and go deep mahogany.
7. Rest it 10 minutes, then chop it through the bone into pieces rather than carving it into slices.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes