Beggar's Chicken

Name: Beggar's Chicken
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 1 whole chicken (1.5kg); Marinade: soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, ginger, spring onion, five-spice; 100g pork, diced, and shiitake mushrooms, for the stuffing; 2 large dried lotus leaves, soaked; Salt dough (flour, salt and water) to seal

叫花鸡/jyow hwah JEE/

Also known as: Jiao Hua Ji, Hangzhou Beggar's Chicken

About this dish

A whole stuffed chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and sealed in clay or dough, then slow-baked until fragrant and falling apart.

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Ingredients

🐔1 whole chicken (1.5kg)

🫙Marinade: soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, ginger, spring onion, five-spice

🐖100g pork, diced, and shiitake mushrooms, for the stuffing

🍃2 large dried lotus leaves, soaked

🌾Salt dough (flour, salt and water) to seal

Method

Serves 2

Marinate the chicken for several hours.

Stir-fry the pork and mushrooms with soy and wine and stuff the chicken.

Wrap the chicken tightly in lotus leaves.

Seal in a thick layer of salt dough.

Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 1 hour, then at 160°C (325°F) for 2 hours. Crack the crust open at the table.

✓ What Makes it Authentic

Jiao hua ji is a Hangzhou speciality; legend says a beggar first cooked a stolen chicken in mud by a fire.

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