🇨🇳 Chinese Cuisine

叫花鸡 (Jiao Hua Ji)

Beggar Chicken

Prep Time 300 minutes

Servings 4

Difficulty Hard

A whole chicken stuffed with aromatics, wrapped in lotus leaves, encased in clay, and slow-baked until the meat is impossibly tender and infused with earthy fragrance.

Ingredients

1 whole chicken about 1.5kg
Lotus leaves soaked
Clay or bread dough for casing
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
Star anise, ginger, scallions
Dried mushrooms
Lap cheong sausage

Instructions

1 Marinate the chicken inside and out with soy sauce, wine, and spices.
2 Stuff with mushrooms, sausage, ginger, and scallions.
3 Wrap tightly in lotus leaves.
4 Encase in a thick layer of wet clay or bread dough.
5 Bake at low heat for four hours until the casing is hard, crack open to serve.

Did You Know?

Legend says a hungry beggar stole a chicken, had no pot, so wrapped it in mud and baked it in a fire, accidentally creating a masterpiece.