Drunken Chicken

As I have said before, my granny made good food and one of her specialties was Drunken Chicken. This was one of the very few recipes that had been passed on to her daughter-in-law, i.e. my mother. I love the Drunken Chicken they made, but it was probably too alcoholic for others liking (the chicken is fully submerged in shaoxing wine for a few days). Therefore, I resorted to Annie Leong’s book again and this is allegedly Mrs. Tsang’s (the wife of Donald Tsang, HK’s Chief Executive) recipe. I mostly followed her recipe except that I didn’t use chicken stock; I used the water coming out from steaming the chicken instead (this to me is fresh chicken stock). The most challenging part of this dish is that you have to chop up the whole chicken into tidy pieces when serving!

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

1. 1 Chicken (about 1.5kg, preferably free range or organic)
2. 2 ginger slices
3. 2 spring onion
4. 2 tablespoons salt
5. 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
6. 600ml shaoxing wine
7. 700ml iced water
8. 3 tablespoons fish sauce
9. 1 tablespoon sugar
10. 1 tablespoon salt
11. 2 disposable ice cube bags (or ice cube trays)

Method:

• Clean the chicken and use kitchen towels to wipe dry inside out.
• Place the ginger and spring onion into the carcass (items 2-3).
• Pat the chicken with salt and shaoxing wine (items 4-5). Place in a deep dish and cover with clingfilm. Place in the fridge for 1 day.
• Fill 2 disposable ice cube bags/ ice cube trays with tap water and put them in the freezer overnight.
• The next day, make the soaking wine by placing shaoxing wine, iced water, fish sauce, sugar and salt in a large bowl (items 6-10). Place the soaking wine in the freezer for at least 3 hours until they are half frozen.
• Place the chicken (with the deep dish) in a steamer and steam for 45 minutes using high heat.
• When the chicken is cooked, take out the chicken quickly and put it in the bowl of half-frozen soaking wine sauce.
• In the meantime, pour out the water coming out from the chicken in the deep dish into a clean bowl. Quicky dip into the bowl the 2 ice-cube bags (There is no need to break open the bags. If using ice-cube trays, place the ice cubes in a plastic bag and tie). This is to immediately cool down the chicken water.
• When the chicken water is cool, pour them to join the chicken and the soaking wine.
• By this time, the chicken should have already cooled down. Gently take it out and cut them into half.
• Put the chicken back to the soaking wine for at least 1 day in the fridge.
• Chop them into pieces. Serve with some soaking wine.