Smoked Chicken

Chicken brined, steamed, then smoked over tea, sugar and rice in a lined pan.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken.

Ingredients

Brine

• 1 whole chicken, about 1.5 kg
• 2 litres water
• 100 g salt, for the brine, which is discarded
• 2 star anise
• 4 slices ginger

Smoking mixture

• 4 tablespoons uncooked rice
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons jasmine tea leaves
• 1 piece cassia bark, broken

To finish

• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Method

1. Dissolve the salt in the water with the star anise and ginger, cool it completely, and brine the chicken for 4 hours in the fridge. Pour the brine away afterwards.
2. Rinse and dry the bird, then steam it for 35 minutes. THE SMOKE DOES NOT COOK IT — smoking a raw chicken long enough to cook it leaves it acrid. It must be cooked through before it goes near the smoke.
3. Line a heavy pan or wok with two layers of foil, bringing it well up the sides, and spread the rice, sugar, tea and cassia on it.
4. Sit a rack above the mixture, put the chicken on it, and cover with a tight lid. Seal the gap with a strip of foil or a damp cloth.
5. Put it on a high heat until you see smoke escaping, about 5 minutes, then turn it to medium and smoke for 12 minutes. Open a window first.
6. Turn the heat off and leave it sealed for another 10 minutes.
7. Brush the skin with the sesame oil and chop the bird. It should be the colour of weak tea; the sugar does the colouring and the tea the smell.

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