Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking (17 page)

There is something very satisfying about buying a whole bird from a farmers’ market and using every bit of it at home. Think of cutting away the breasts and using them in Gong Bao Chicken with Peanuts; poaching the thighs and serving them as Cold Chicken with a Spicy Sichuanese Sauce, or using them to whip up a Black Bean Chicken. Stew the heart and liver in a little spiced broth and dip them in salt, ground chillies and ground roasted Sichuan pepper. And then make the rest of the bird into a stock, with a little ginger and spring onion, and use it as the base for the evening’s soup, or store it in the freezer for another time.

Perhaps the most wonderful thing about the chicken in Chinese cooking, however, is the way a little bit of its meat or fat can lend rich, savory flavors to vegetable dishes. Half a chicken breast, sliced or slivered and simply marinated, adds an extra dimension of deliciousness to a wokful of mushrooms or vegetables (see Stir-fried Oyster Mushrooms with Chicken). Leftovers from a Western-style roast chicken can be given the Sichuanese treatment: sliced or slivered, bulked out with salad leaves and served with a lavishly spicy dressing; or piled on top of a bowl of cold buckwheat noodles. Chicken stock is a perfect base for all kinds of soups, while the golden fat that solidifies at the top of a panful of cooling stock is often added to mushrooms or greens just before they are served, like a magical elixir of umami flavor.

Chicken is the bird most often cooked at home in China, which is why it’s the focus of the recipes that follow. Duck is also enjoyed, but cooked less often at home than in restaurants and in the workshops of specializt food producers, whose ovens, large woks for deep-frying and smokeries are designed to make the most of its luxuriantly fragrant fat. Many Chinese people will buy roasted, smoked or stewed duck and serve it with home-cooked dishes. Leftover duck can be chopped up and used in fried rice, with a little preserved vegetable, or in soupy rice (used in place of salt pork); and the carcass makes a fabulous stock to which you can add Chinese cabbage and tofu for a comforting soup.

Goose is another fowl that is enjoyed in certain parts of China, but rarely cooked in a domestic kitchen. Pheasants and pigeons are rarer treats; game birds such as pheasants may be fried in oil, then slow-cooked, as in the Braised Chicken with Chestnuts, or simply stewed in a clay pot with a little Shaoxing wine, ginger and medicinal herbs for a tonic soup.

Finally, eggs might be stir-fried with tomatoes or made into a Golden Chinese Chive Omelette; they may also be fried on both sides (to make what are known as “pocket eggs”) and laid on top of a bowl of noodles. Duck eggs are sometimes eaten in omelettes, but are more often salted or preserved in alkalis to make the striking delicacy known in the West as “1,000-year-old eggs.”

STEAMED CHICKEN WITH CHINESE SAUSAGE AND SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS
HE YE ZHENG JI
荷葉蒸雞

This delicate Cantonese dish is no trouble at all to make. All you need to do is cut up chicken thighs, Chinese sausage and mushrooms, mix them with a few seasonings and steam them for 15 minutes. The chicken retains a silky tenderness and the sausage and mushrooms impart a heady hit of umami. The chicken is traditionally wrapped in a lotus leaf, which lends an exquisite fragrance, but it’s lovely even without this extra touch. You can buy dried lotus leaves in good Chinese supermarkets.

2 dried shiitake mushrooms

3 boneless chicken thighs (11½ oz/330g)

1¾ oz (45g) Chinese wind-dried sausage, or ¾ oz (30g) Chinese or Spanish ham

For the marinade

⅓ oz (10g) ginger, unpeeled, plus ½ oz (20g) ginger, peeled and sliced

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp sugar

½ tbsp Shaoxing wine

2 tsp potato flour mixed with 2 tsp cold water

2 tsp cooking oil

Soak the dried mushrooms for at least 30 minutes in hot water from the kettle.

Cut the chicken into strips about 1cm wide and put it in a bowl. Crush the whole piece of ginger with the flat of a cleaver or a rolling pin, put in a cup and cover with water (the water will immediately take on its fragrance). Add 1 tbsp of this water to the chicken, along with the salt, sugar, Shaoxing wine, and potato flour mixture, and mix well. Finally, add the sliced ginger and the oil and stir (I find it easiest to use my hand for this mixing).

Cut the wind-dried sausage at an angle into thickish slices (if you are using ham, slice it thinly). Cut the soaked mushroom caps, at an angle, into thin slices, discarding the stalks.

Spread out the chicken strips, as far as possible in a single layer, in a shallow bowl that will fit into your steamer. Lay the mushrooms and sausage slices neatly over the top. Place the bowl in the steamer, cover, then steam over a high heat for about 15 minutes, until the chicken pieces are just cooked through. Serve.

To wrap the chicken in a lotus leaf

Soak the dried lotus leaf in hot water from the kettle for at least 15 minutes. When the leaf is soft and supple, use scissors to cut a piece large enough to wrap the chicken completely (if the leaf is broken, use two layers). Lay the leaf, or leaves, in the steamer. Arrange the chicken, sausage slices and mushrooms on the leaf as described in the main recipe above, then turn in the edges of the leaf to wrap it up into a parcel. Cover the steamer and steam over a high heat for about 15 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Gently remove the lotus leaf parcel to a serving dish, or serve in the steamer. Your guests can unwrap it at the table.

BLACK BEAN CHICKEN
DOU CHI JI DING
豆豉雞丁

This is a slightly simplified version of a delicious dish from the Hunanese firework-producing city of Liuyang. In the original, the chicken is deep-fried; here, it is simply stir-fried, so it keeps its succulent mouthfeel. The seasonings remain the same as in the original recipe. You can omit the chillies, or increase them, according to taste. Fermented black beans are among the most distinctive Hunanese seasonings, especially when used in combination with chillies.

Here, as in many Chinese dishes, an apparently small amount of meat goes a long way: serve this with two or three vegetable dishes and rice and it will be enough for four people. You could use chicken breast instead if you prefer.

2 boneless chicken thighs (8 oz/225g)

1 smallish green bell pepper, or ½ each red and green bellpepper

3 tbsp cooking oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

An equivalent amount of ginger, peeled and sliced

2 tbsp fermented black beans, rinsed and drained

1–2 tsp ground chillies, to taste

Salt

2 tbsp finely sliced spring onion greens

1 tsp sesame oil

For the marinade

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

¼ tsp salt

1½ tsp potato flour

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tsp dark soy sauce

Cut the chicken into ⅜–¾ in (1–2 cm) cubes and put into a bowl. Stir together the marinade ingredients, add to the chicken and mix well.

Cut the pepper(s) into small squares to match the chicken. Heat a wok over a high flame, add 1 tbsp of the oil, then the peppers and stir-fry until hot and slightly cooked, but still crisp. Remove and set aside.

Reheat the wok over a high flame. Add the remainder of the oil, swirl it around, then add the marinated chicken and stir-fry to separate the pieces. When they have separated and are starting to become pale, add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry until they smell delicious. Add the black beans and stir a few times until you can smell them. Then add the ground chillies and return the peppers to the wok. Continue to stir-fry until the chicken is just cooked through and everything is sizzlingly delicious, seasoning with salt to taste. Then stir in the spring onions and, off the heat, the sesame oil. Serve.

GONG BAO CHICKEN WITH PEANUTS
GONG BAO JI DING
宮保雞丁

As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the ultimate chicken dishes: quick and easy to make and thrillingly delicious. The cooking method is
xiao chao
, “small stir-fry,” in which all the ingredients are simply added to the wok in succession. With its kick of scorched chilli, tingle of Sichuan pepper and gentle sweet-sour sauce, it’s a typically Sichuanese combination of flavors. The crunchy peanuts, juicy spring onions and succulent chicken also give it a delightful mouthfeel.

The dish is named after a late Qing Dynasty governor of Sichuan, Ding Baozhen, who is said to have enjoyed eating it. You’ll find versions of this dish, often known in English as Kung Po chicken, on virtually every Chinese restaurant menu, but this is the real Chengdu version. This recipe first appeared in my book
Land of Plenty
.

2 boneless chicken breasts, with or without skin (11–12 oz/300–350g in total)

3 garlic cloves

An equivalent amount of ginger

5 spring onions, white parts only

A handful of dried chillies (about 10)

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 tsp whole Sichuan pepper

3 oz (75g)
roasted peanuts
(to make your own)

For the marinade

½ tsp salt

2 tsp light soy sauce

1 tsp Shaoxing wine

1½ tsp potato flour

For the sauce

1 tbsp sugar

¾ tsp potato flour

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp Chinkiang vinegar

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp chicken stock or water

Cut the chicken as evenly as possible into ½ in (1½cm) strips, then cut these into small cubes. Place in a small bowl. Add the marinade ingredients together with 1 tbsp water, mix well and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

Peel and thinly slice the garlic and ginger and chop the spring onions into chunks as long as their diameter (to match the chicken cubes). Snip the chillies in half or into sections. Discard their seeds as far as possible. Combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.

Heat a seasoned wok over a high flame. Add the oil with the chillies and Sichuan pepper and stir-fry briefly until the chillies are darkening but not burned (remove the wok from the heat if necessary to prevent overheating).

Quickly add the chicken and stir-fry over a high flame, stirring constantly. As soon as the chicken cubes have separated, add the ginger, garlic and spring onions and continue to stir-fry until they are fragrant and the meat just cooked through (test one of the larger pieces to make sure).

Give the sauce a stir and add it to the wok, continuing to stir and toss. As soon as the sauce has become thick and shiny, add the peanuts, stir them in and serve.