(1) Recipe: Drunken Chicken (醉鸡)

Chicken legs, two. We’ll be deboning these… a little bigger or a little smaller’s totally fine – you’ll get one roll per leg. Note that most traditionally, they’d debone an entire chicken and roll that up – we… didn’t feel like doing that, but feel free to do so if you’d like (IIRC you’d have to up the steaming time to ~1 hour). Also, if I’m remembering right I think in the USA they sold deboned thighs at the supermarket (i.e. without the drumstick?) – you could use those too, but the rolls’ll be a bit thinner… so when cooking go by temperature instead of our timing guidelines. Chicken legs, two. We’ll be deboning these… a little bigger or a little smaller’s totally fine - you’ll get one roll per leg. Note that most traditionally, they’d debone an entire chicken and roll that up - we… didn’t feel like doing that, but feel free to do so if you’d like (IIRC you’d have to up the steaming time to ~1 hour). Also, if I’m remembering right I think in the USA they sold deboned thighs at the supermarket (i.e. without the drumstick?) - you could use those too, but the rolls’ll be a bit thinner… so when cooking go by temperature instead of our timing guidelines.

To steam the chicken: ~1 inch of sliced ginger and a solid glug of Shaoxing wine (绍兴酒/花雕酒). Sorry for the measurement of ‘glug’ there, this doesn’t need to be an exact science.

Water: 3 cups. For the brine. We’ve seen recipes that use stock here as a base… you could go that route, but just be careful – you’d want a really nice stock like superior stock; i.e. one that’s flavored with more meat than bone. The stock should still be a liquid when stored in the fridge for it to work properly (so like, no-go on simple Chinese homestyle stocks and definitely a nope on western stocks)… otherwise, you’ll be soaking the chicken in salty-boozy-jelly instead of brine. Water: 3 cups. For the brine. We’ve seen recipes that use stock here as a base… you could go that route, but just be careful - you’d want a really nice stock like superior stock; i.e. one that’s flavored with more meat than bone. The stock should still be a liquid when stored in the fridge for it to work properly (so like, no-go on simple Chinese homestyle stocks and definitely a nope on western stocks)… otherwise, you’ll be soaking the chicken in salty-boozy-jelly instead of brine.

Spices for the brine: 2 star anise (八角), 1 cinnamon stick (桂皮), ~15 whole cloves (丁香), ~1 tsp fennel seed (小茴香), 3g sand ginger (沙姜) -or- dried galangal -or- skip this, 5g goji berries (枸杞). The sand ginger (a.k.a. kencur/cutcherry) is optional here. The goji could be skipped I guess, but they’re so classic with this dish that I’d really recommend them.

Shaoxing wine (绍兴酒), 1 cup. Preferably a nicer one. If you’re in the West, try to find a bottle that says it’s Huadiao (or ‘Hua Tiao’)… unfortunately though, because of stupid alcohol laws it appears like – in the USA at least – most of the Shaoxing wine (even the Huadiao) might only be sold salted. If so, you can still move forward… but only after you write to your state congressman about how their pseudo-puritanical wine restrictions are directly harming the quality of your dinner. Shaoxing wine (绍兴酒), 1 cup. Preferably a nicer one. If you’re in the West, try to find a bottle that says it’s Huadiao (or ‘Hua Tiao’)… unfortunately though, because of stupid alcohol laws it appears like - in the USA at least - most of the Shaoxing wine (even the Huadiao) might only be sold salted. If so, you can still move forward… but only after you write to your state congressman about how their pseudo-puritanical wine restrictions are directly harming the quality of your dinner.

Seasoning: 2 tbsp salt (if using unsalted Shaoxing) or 1 tbsp salt (if using salted), 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp MSG (味精) -or- 1 tbsp fish sauce (鱼露) -or- a combination. So right, given that salted Shaoxing’s generally 1.5% salt, in this recipe it works out to about half. Also, interesting note on the MSG/Fish Sauce. Our old cookbooks called for MSG in the brine, but if you look on the back of the Zaolu pickle sauce bottle also contains Disodium inosinate. This is an additive that's often used in conjunction with MSG - Inosinate is the umami that comes from meat and particularly seafood. We were tasting the two (our brine and the Zaolu) side by side and the Zaolu just had this intense savoryness that we couldn't seem to replicate with just MSG. On a whim, the other day I did a quick gander online to see if anyone put fish sauce in their brine... and there were at least a couple recipes that did. I don't know how traditional it is, but I definitely think it might be a nice idea. If it was me, I'd probably toss in ~1 tsp of MSG with 1/2 tbsp of fish sauce. Seasoning: 2 tbsp salt (if using unsalted Shaoxing) or 1 tbsp salt (if using salted), 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp MSG (味精) -or- 1 tbsp fish sauce (鱼露) -or- a combination. So right, given that salted Shaoxing’s generally 1.5% salt, in this recipe it works out to about half. Also, interesting note on the MSG/Fish Sauce. Our old cookbooks called for MSG in the brine, but if you look on the back of the Zaolu pickle sauce bottle also contains Disodium inosinate. This is an additive that's often used in conjunction with MSG - Inosinate is the umami that comes from meat and particularly seafood. We were tasting the two (our brine and the Zaolu) side by side and the Zaolu just had this intense savoryness that we couldn't seem to replicate with just MSG. On a whim, the other day I did a quick gander online to see if anyone put fish sauce in their brine... and there were at least a couple recipes that did. I don't know how traditional it is, but I definitely think it might be a nice idea. If it was me, I'd probably toss in ~1 tsp of MSG with ½ tbsp of fish sauce.

You’ll also need a bit of gauze or cheesecloth (to wrap the chicken), some twine, and ideally some sort of steaming rack (preferred over a plate here so that the grease can render off while steaming).

Add the spices to the water, and bring it up to a boil. We’ll be making the brine at first to give it ample time to cool down.

Once it’s at a boil, get down to a simmer. Simmer on low until reduced by about one third, ~15 minutes.

Add in the salt, the sugar, and the MSG. Let those dissolve and make the brine.

Let come down to room temperature, the toss in the fridge until you’re ready to use.

Debone your chicken leg. There’s… better resources online on how to debone chicken than us, honestly. But that said, here’s my probably crappy go at how to debone a chicken leg: first slice down to get to the thigh bone, then scrape the meat off the bone with your knife. Now pull the thigh bone up - it helps me to think of this as removing the meat from the bone rather than the bone from the meat… then once it’s hanging on a thread, cut that out. Then, slice down on both sides of the leg bone, cut along the bottom of the bone, and slice it off at the ankle. Finally, remove that pesky leg bone on the thigh side.

Remove any excess fat or cartilage from the leg. Too much fat’ll give a less pleasant texture to the final end result.

Using the back of a knife, pound the chicken flat for ~1 minute. You could also use one of those hammer-like things they got in the West if you prefer. If you’ve got a Chinese chef’s knife it’s convenient though because then that means one less dish to wash ;)

With the skin down and drumstick side facing you, tightly roll the leg. Use a similar motion to how you’d roll sushi, only you’ll end up rolling a bit of the chicken inside of itself (sorry, probably a crap way to describe it… when you make a sushi roll you use just enough nori that it’s always on the outside - imagine if you made too ambitious of a roll… as you rolled, some of the nori would get tucked inside of the sushi, and that’s what’ll happen here). That’s why you want to start with the drumstick side - it’ll be narrower, so the bulk of the skin’ll remain on the outside of the roll.

Place on your gauze/cheesecloth, tightly wrap again, then tuck any meat that’s ‘spilled’ out of the skin back in. As you roll, the pressure might make the meat come out - tuck it back under the skin.

Twist of the ends and tie with twine. Tie one more piece of twine tightly down the center. And those are good to steam - two legs, two rolls.

Add the ginger/Shaoxing wine to the steaming liquid, get up to a boil, nestle in the steaming tray. Add the chicken rolls, cover, and steam for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, turn off the heat, and leave it to chill there for another five minutes -or- use your trusty instant read thermometer. If going the thermometer route, we like our chicken leg done at ~80C. At 74C it’ll be safe, and between 74 to 80 it when it gets that characteristic ‘rosy’ color of poached/steamed chicken. That said, I know a lot of Westerners can get super antsy whenever they see chicken that’s any color besides ‘pure white’, so if you’re serving this for others I’d say (1) trust your thermometer, tell them to get over it but… (2) if you don’t want the hassle, maybe you might just wanna overcook it a little (no more than 85C though).

Take out the chicken rolls, dunk in an ice bath. Or alternatively, do what we did when filming and keep your brine in a zero degree freezer for a bit until you’re ready to use… give the chicken rolls a quick rinse under cool water, then spoon the super cold brine over them. In hindsight we really just should’ve shot an ice bath, but hey, anything to avoid those extra dishes…

Place the rolls in a container and add the brine. Move over the goji berries and any large spices you feel like, then place in the fridge overnight.

Next day, cut the chicken rolls into ~½ inch slices. To serve, spoon over a handsome quantity of brine and move over a bit of the goji berries. Definitely want a nice bit of brine with the chicken, it’ll be a good bit more flavorful.

subheading: Note on steaming with aluminum foil vs gauze/cloth:

Now, quick note that if you take a quick gander through Xiachufang (the Chinese AllRecipes), you’ll find a lot of folks using aluminum foil in place of the gauze/cloth. And the find time I’ve ever eaten this dish… that’s how I was introduced to it too. I’d venture to say that a majority of recipes online will use aluminum foil here.

That said, when we consult our old school Chinese cookbooks/culinary school textbooks (we’ve never been to culinary school, but we do like to collect textbooks lol), all the recipes seem to use cloth instead.

It’s ultimately up to you. Try both, see what you like better. Ostensibly, the aluminum foil method ‘seals in juices’… but so long as you don’t overcook your chicken, it’ll be plenty juicy enough. With cloth, on the other hand, the fat from the chicken thigh’ll render off during cooking… making for a less greasy end result (also has the benefit of keeping the brine less oily).

Of course, wrapping in aluminum foil’s easier, and it’s not that big of a difference anyhow. Just wanted to share why our approach might be a bit different than some other recipes you’ve seen online.

subheading: Note on the poaching method if going for the whole chicken:

So right, first up… the promised links. Cantonese Bak Chit Gai is here and Sichuanese Koushuiji ‘Mouth-watering Chicken’ is here. If you wanna follow through the accompanying videos, in the former you get to see Steph’s badass Dad kill a chicken and prep it nose to tail… plus, show the tried and true ‘sanitize your chopping board by lighting it on fire with ethanol’ method. In the latter, you get to watch me make an ass out of myself cleaving a whole chicken into pieces (something that I’m really… not great at).

subheading: So right, being from wildly different Chinese cuisines those two recipes have kinda disparate poaching methods… and Jiangnan drunken chicken is no exception. What you’d do is:

Add Shaoxing wine, ginger, and scallion to your poaching liquid.

Lower the chicken into the poaching liquid, cook for three minutes.

Move over to an ice bath, soak for ~1 minute.

Repeat steps two and three until the chicken is cooked, ~4 to 5 times.

Quarter the chicken.

Soak in the same way as the recipe above.

Chop across the bone to serve.

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