🇨🇳 Chinese Cuisine

白切鸡 (Bai Qie Ji)

White Cut Chicken

Prep Time 60 minutes

Servings 4

Difficulty Medium

A Cantonese classic of gently poached whole chicken served at room temperature with silky, barely-set flesh and a ginger-scallion oil dipping sauce. The ultimate test of chicken quality.

Ingredients

1 whole free-range chicken about 1.5kg
5 slices ginger
3 scallions
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine
Ice water bath
3 tablespoons minced ginger
2 tablespoons scallion oil
Salt

Instructions

1 Bring a large pot of water to a boil with ginger, scallions, and wine.
2 Submerge the chicken, return to a boil, then turn off heat and cover.
3 Let chicken steep for forty-five minutes in the residual heat.
4 Plunge into ice water for fifteen minutes to set the skin.
5 Chop into pieces and serve with ginger-scallion oil sauce.

Did You Know?

A perfectly cooked white cut chicken should have a thin line of pink along the bone, showing it was cooked gently by residual heat.