Monday, July 09, 2007

Beggar's Chicken

One of my fellow forumers shared this recipe with us. As I was not able to cook it, I printed the recipe for my domestic helper to try it out. It turned out very yummy and juicy. Thanks to cwl for giving me the green light to share the recipe here.

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Beggar's Chicken

1 whole chicken, about 2kg
5-6 dried mushroom, soaked till soft and diced thickly
1 large carrot, diced thickly
1 Tablespoon kei chi
5 shallots, sliced thickly
3 garlic, sliced thickly
1 pce lotus leaf, soaked in warm water till soft
1 large pce heavy-duty aluminium foil (or 2 large pieces regular foil)

marinade :
1 Tbsp oyster sauce
1 Tbsp black soya sauce
1 Tbsp shiaoxing wine
2 tsp sesame oil

Seasoning :
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp shiaoxing wine
1/4 tsp salt
dash of dark soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil

Dough :
3 cups plain flour
1 cup coarse salt
1-11/2 cups water

Method :
1. Rub chicken all over with the marinade and leave in fridge overnight.
2. In a pan, fry shallots and garlic in a bit of oil until fragrant.
3. Add in the mushrooms, carrots and kei chi.
4. Add in the seasoning and fry for a minute or so. Dish out and let cool.
5. Make your dough : Add flour and salt in a large bowl. Add 1 cup of water and mix until a dough forms. Add more water if needed until you get a workable dough.
6. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough as large as you need so it completely covers the entire chicken.
7. Place the aluminium foil ontop of the dough and the lotus leaf on top of the foil.
8 Place the marinated chicken in the middle of the lotus leaf. Stuff it with the cooled stuffing.
9. Wrap the chicken up first with the lotus leaf, followed by the aluminum foil. Make sure the foil is sealed as tightly as possible. Then wrap the dough all around it, again ensuring it is sealed tight.
10. Bake in a preheated 220C oven for 1 hour 15 mins.
11. Reduce heat to 180C and bake for another 2 hours.
12.Crack open the hardened dough, and serve. Make sure not to lose any of the delicious gravy within the package.

Note: I actually only baked it for another 1 hr at 180C as the kids couldn't wait to eat the chicken. If you follow the original recipe and bake it longer, the chicken meat will be so tender and soft and will just fall off the bones.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi HB ,
Please can you share this receipe , it look so good .Thank you so much

Anonymous said...

Wah!!! I am curious as to what is used to "cover" the chicken? Do u mind sharing the recipe as it certainly looks very yummy. Tks in advance.

Anonymous said...

Dear Hugbear

Can you advise where can i buy lotus leaves.

Thanks.

Hugbear said...

Shirley, you can get dried lotus leaves from some Chinese medical hall. If you are around Hong Lim Complex area you can try asking the many medical halls there, I am sure they will have it.

Hugbear said...

Hi vb and anonymous, I am seeking permission to post the recipe here. Be patient, hehe.

Anonymous said...

WAH! YUMMY YUMMY! eh.. y can't u cook it urself? nid ur househelp to do it leh? ah leng...

Anonymous said...

hi hugbear,
i was wondering,looking at your previous posts,where have you gotten classes for cake decorating?I am interested in the cake decorating class you went to looking at your previously posted beautiful cakes?

Anonymous said...

oh my! i'm crossing my fingers that your friend will give you the ok!

Anonymous said...

Thank you (you) and your friend so much for the receipe .I can't wait to try it . Thanks

Amy Goh said...

Lee,

This look real fantastic, will surely try.
Thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

Tks so much for the recipe but it is an awful lot of work, not to mention long baking time....but I will certainly try it over the weekend....let u know the outcome ok.

Anonymous said...

Hi Lee,
I just try out the chicken yesterday , the chicken so moist and flavor .....so yummy .... thank for receipe ,
But I skip one of your step , instead of wrap allumium foil after lotus leaf , I wrap the leaf and direct to dough , when the chicken is cook it smell lotus leaf , I love that smell .....
thanks again for sharing ...

Ng

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugbear,

May i noe wat is kei chi?

Thanks

Regards
Madeline

Hugbear said...

Madeline, kei chi is wolfberries.

Hugbear said...

Hi Ng, happy that you like the recipe. Actually I prefer to wrap with aluminum foil before the dough because I want to keep as much of the sauce as possible. Wrapping the lotus and dough only will cause the juice/sauce to be absorbed into the dough or onto the tray and it is such a waste.

Amy Goh said...

Hi Lee,
THANK YOU! For sharing this yummilicious recipe. Chicken is so tender and super moist. You're superb in making the dough with 3 cups of flour, I definitely used more than 3 cups of flour and salt, though my chicken is only 1.8Kg.

Hugbear said...

Amy, it doesn't matter how many cups of flour you use as long as the chicken turned out delicious. You made it dear. Hehehe

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugbear

Where can i buy louts leaf? Pls advise.

Yan said...

Hi Lee Lee,

i attempted this receipe on tuesday nite itself after having marinated the chicken overnite since Monday.

It was delicious different from the other conventional methods of cooking chicken. My siblings & Mom loved it too.

cheers,
yan

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugbear

You mentioned that need to preheat the oven? So what is the temp & duration for the preheating? Cos my oven don't have preheat function.

Thanks ya!!

Hugbear said...

Yes, preheat the oven at 200C for about 10 mins before you pop the chicken in.

Unknown said...

Hi lee lee,

Thanks for sharing this wonderful receipe on ur blog. Had tried on last wkend and dh love it. Unfortunatly we had lost the delicious gravy while crack open the dough so the chicken abit dry on certain part..but somehow we still managed to finished e whole chicken ;)

Hugbear said...

Hi trihok, did you wrap a layer of foil after the lotus leaf? If yes, after you cracked open the dough you should be able to retain most of the juice in the chicken. Carefully peel the dough away from the foil and quickly transfer it to a plate that is deep enough for the juice.

Unknown said...

Hi lee lee, yes I did wrap a layer of foil after the lotus leave. I thk i never seal the foil properly. haha gonna try it again. thanks.

Yan said...

LeeLee :
i cooked this dish again last nite. yumz.
this is my post on the making http://zephry2yan.blogspot.com.
thanks again. =D

Hugbear said...

Yan, cannot open go to your blog lei.

Yan said...

LeeLee :
click on my name directly, it should link u to my mini blogsite.

Yan said...

oopz LeeLee, i juz spotted my own typo error. paiseh paiseh. my fault, it shld be =
http://zephyr2yan.blogspot.com
=p

Anonymous said...

Question: does it mean the recipe calls for 3 h 15 mins of baking?

or 2 hrs in total?

I'm a little confused.

Hugbear said...

You can follow the recipe and bake for 3.5 hours or if you are like me, don't have too much time to bake so long, 2.5 hours is quite enough except that the longer you bake, the softer the meat.

A Full-Timed Housefly said...

May I borrow your domestic helper for a month ?...LOL... this dish looks so delicious , thanks for sharing !

Anonymous said...

It been a very long time I had done this ... Love the dish.

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