Beggar Chicken 乞丐鸡

I think anyone from Asian should have heard of this delicious dish called beggar chicken. One of the legendary dish originated from Jiangsu, during Qing Dynasty. Click here to read more of the legendary story. However, there are actually quite a number of versions for this particular dish these days. For my personal opinion, since this is a dish made by a beggar, then it should be something simple without any complicated ingredients. Please read on to find out more.

And here’s what I have decided to put into the chicken. My special spice mixed ingredients included 1 tspn  five spice powder, 1 tspn  dang gui powder, 2 tspn  fine salt, 1/2 tspn  pepper & 1 tspn  vegetarian granule.

Ingredients :
1  free range chicken (kampung chicken)
The abovementioned spice mixed per bird
4 slices  dang gui
4 TB   brandy or Chinese rice wine
1  pce   Lotus leaf
a double layer greaseproof paper
1-1/2 cup   coarse salt
800gm   all purpose flour
500ml    water

**I used 1 kg flour mixed with 600ml water (but too thick for small bird). So, I suggested the above given measurement.

Method :
(1) soak lotus leaf for about 2 hours or till totally softened then washed & pat dry. On the other hand, soak dang gui slices into brandy or rice wine.
(2)  marinade chicken with the ready mixed spice then set aside to rest for an hour at room temperature.

(3)  at time being, stir water into flour till soft dough is formed and knead till smooth.
(4)   when ready, wrap chicken with lotus leaf then follow by the second wrap, with greaseproof paper. (as picture shown below) Of course, don’t forget to add in the Chinese wine mixture into the chicken core.

(5)   now, its time to roll dough to thin sheet for wrapping up the chicken,

(6)  after flatten dough into thin sheet, place coarse salt onto center.

(7)  place in the nicely wrapped chicken and fold in dough to seal the chicken.
(8)  finally, bake at preheated oven 200′C for an hour and 180′C for another hour, but mine I baked at 220′C for the first 60 minutes then 200′C for the following 60 minutes.

 And finally, here’s the homemade beggar chicken from kristygourmet kitchen ! Super exciting.

As I mentioned the dough is too thick, so it doesn’t cracked as it was told. haha….. Ok Ok… its my fault ! Don’t blame anyone ! Anyway, I cut it open and the whole thing smells soooo good.

Can you imagine this is now on your dinning table !!!! haha…..

The chicken is so aromatic, juicy, moist & really really tender that the meat is almost slips off the bones.Yup, it is all true !  Its all worth it. I definitely will go for another attempt soon. Hope you guys will love it too !