A round white porcelain plate holds a whole salt-baked chicken chopped into pieces, with golden-yellow skin over pale meat and the pieces gathered on the plate, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
The regional cooking of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, prized for live, fresh ingredients and light flavours.
Salt-baked chicken is a whole chicken that is seasoned, wrapped in paper and slowly cooked buried in hot coarse salt, then pulled or chopped and often served with a ginger-based dip. It is both a Cantonese and a Hakka dish; Dongjiang salt-baked chicken is a notable Hakka dish. Accounts of its origins include Qing-dynasty Huizhou salt merchants and a Guangzhou restaurant devising the Dongjiang poach-and-shred style in the 1940s; these remain unverified, the cited Zhongguo Mingcai Pu was not consulted here, and no origin date was verified.
What
Salt-baked chicken is a whole chicken that is seasoned, wrapped in paper and slowly cooked buried in hot coarse salt, then pulled or chopped and often served with a dip based on ginger.1,2,3,4
When
Second-hand accounts include a story of Huizhou salt merchants in the Qing dynasty, without a specific year, and a claim that a Guangzhou restaurant devised the Dongjiang poach-and-shred style in the 1940s. No dated original text was found here, and the cited cookbook, Zhongguo Mingcai Pu, was not checked, so these accounts serve only as pointers.1
Where
Hakka areas of eastern Guangdong, including the Dongjiang area, Meizhou and Huizhou. Salt-baked chicken is both a Hakka and a Cantonese dish, and Dongjiang salt-baked chicken belongs to Hakka cuisine.1,2
How
Home preparation: coarse salt is toasted in a wok for about 15 minutes, and a whole chicken rubbed with sand ginger powder and other seasonings, air-dried overnight and wrapped in baking paper is buried in it. The pot is covered and the chicken cooks over medium heat for about 35 minutes, then rests covered for 30 to 40 minutes. For an oven version, coarse salt is heated in a 220 degree Celsius oven, the chicken is buried in it and baked for about 1 hour 15 minutes, then rested for 10 minutes. The dish was originally baked in hot salt; the Dongjiang style is poached and then shredded.1,2,3,4
Why
The story that salt merchants used salt to preserve and cook chicken has no cited source, so it is treated as a legend rather than a fact.3,4
Impact and influence
Dongjiang salt-baked chicken is a notable Hakka dish.2
Legend has it that in the Qing dynasty the salt merchants of Huizhou were wealthy, and their cooks buried leftover cooked chicken in a heap of salt to keep it, with the diners rinsing the salt off before eating. This is a tale and nothing more, and no dated text recording it was found.
Told in: Chinese Wikipedia retells it as a Qing-dynasty story of Huizhou salt merchants, and two recipe authors repeat it with the words legend has it, neither giving a source.
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
Restaurants use a lot of hot salt for this dish. This is the simpler way I make it at home, with a wok and a pot with a lid: the chicken is rubbed with seasoning and air-dried overnight, wrapped in baking paper and buried in toasted coarse salt. The amounts and timings follow the Hakka version in one named recipe; the second named recipe is an oven version, and from it I took just the idea of serving a ginger and scallion dip. How I judge that the chicken is done is my own method.
Ingredients
Whole chicken 1 chicken, about 1,350 g
Shaoxing wine 2 tablespoons
Sand ginger powder 1.5 tablespoons
White pepper 1/2 teaspoon
Salt 2 teaspoons, for rubbing the chicken
Coarse salt about 1,400 g, toasted, for cooking the chicken
Baking paper enough to wrap the chicken
Steps
Wash the chicken and dry it well. Mix the wine, sand ginger powder, white pepper and 2 teaspoons of salt and rub it over the chicken inside and out. Leave it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight to air-dry.
The next day take the chicken out of the refrigerator and wrap it whole in baking paper, closing it up well.
Put the coarse salt in a wok with no oil and toast it over medium heat for about 15 minutes, until it is hot all through.
Take a heavy pot with a lid, spread a layer of hot salt in it, set the wrapped chicken on top and cover the chicken with the rest of the hot salt.
Put the lid on and cook over medium heat for about 35 minutes. Then turn off the heat and, without lifting the lid, leave the chicken in the salt for another 30 to 40 minutes.
Brush the salt off the paper and unwrap it. Cut into the thick part of the thigh: the meat must show no pink and the juices must run clear. If it is still pink, wrap it up again, bury it in the hot salt, cover and cook over low heat for a few more minutes, until it is cooked through.
Pull the chicken into shreds or chop it into pieces and serve it warm, with a ginger and scallion dip on the side if you like.
Tips
Before unwrapping, I brush all the salt off the paper so it does not fall on the meat; this is my own habit.
The recipe is for a chicken of about 1,350 g. A bigger bird needs more time, and I would rather add a few minutes and cut in to check than serve it undercooked.
