Beggar's Chicken, a Chinese Delicacy

Long back I read about a Chinese delicacy known as "Beggar's Chicken" and was waiting for an opportunity to try my hands on it. It is the Chinese version of the roasted chicken dating back to the Qing dynasty. The process involves wrapping a whole spiced chicken in lotus leaves, then encasing it in mud and roasted in open fire. When fully cooked, the mud forms a hard shell around the chicken and cracked open before revealing the deliciously roasted chicken inside.

As per the legend, a beggar in Zhejiang province stole a chicken from a village, and buried it in mud. He retrieved the mud covered chicken latter, and instead of cleaning the mud he just threw it in an open fire. This resulted in hardening the muddy shell around the chicken with a deliciously roasted bird inside. He then started selling chickens cooked this way and made a fortune for himself, also creating a Chinese culinary tradition known as "Beggar's Chicken".

Step 1: Making Five-Spice Powder

Five-Spice is one of the main ingredients in making Beggar's Chicken. It is a roasted, powdered blend of spices like Cinnamon, Fennel seeds, Clove, Star Anise and Sichuan Pepper. It is mainly used in Chinese cooking as well in most of the Asian countries. All these spices are growing in our area too. Though I got all raw spices, I could get Sichuan pepper in powdered form only.

Thanks to lmnopeas for her instructable on "Chinese Five Spice Powder" at: https://www.instructables.com/id/Chinese-Five-Spice-Powder/

I followed her instructable in making the Five-spice powder for the Beggar's Chicken recipe.

Step 2: Other Ingredients

Ingredients required:

I have slightly modified the ingredients required for the original Beggar's Chicken Recipe. The following are the ingredients I have used:

1. One kg of Chicken cleaned
2. Two tablespoons of Five-Spice Powder
3. Three tablespoons of Soy Sauce
4. Four medium sized Onions
5. One full Garlic bulb
6. One inch Ginger piece
7. Three tablespoons of cooking oil
8. One tablespoon Sugar
9. Salt to taste
10. One tablespoon Red Chilly powder
11. Two Tomatoes
12. Four Green Chilies (for the aroma)

Step 3: Making the Spice Paste

Making the Spice Paste

1. Peeled Ginger and Garlic and Made paste in a Mixer / Grinder
2. Peeled Onion and made a paste
3. Pureed two tomatoes
4. Mixed all ingredients including Five-Spice Powder, Soy sauce, Sugar, Salt, Cooking oil and Red Chilly Powder together  along with above pastes in a bowl (other than the Green Chilies)

The spice paste is ready. I have not added any water to the mix.

Step 4: Preparing the Chicken

Placed the cleaned chicken in a large sized bowl and applied the spice paste. Most of the spice paste went between the skin and flesh. Also applied the spice paste on the outer and inner sides of the chicken.

Sliced green chilies were inserted behind the skin for added aroma. 

Now the chicken is ready to be wrapped.

Step 5: Wrapping the Spiced Chicken

The Chinese version of the recipe caters for a Lotus leaf for wrapping the spiced chicken. Here I have used a large sized tender Banana leaf in lieu of the Lotus leaf as wrapping with banana leaves may confer an aroma to the chicken.

The fresh Banana leaf tends to tear down in places while wrapping. Curing the leaf over low flame will prevent it from tearing down.

Placed the spiced chicken in the cured Banana leaf, wrapped it around the chicken and tied it with cotton thread.

The spiced chicken is now ready for Mud-casing

Step 6: Mud-Casing

Mud-Casing the wrapped chicken is done prior to roasting it in open fire. I have dug out some red soil about six inches below the surface after clearing the top soil from our garden. Added little water to the soil and applied the casing over the banana leaf wrapped spiced chicken.

Now we need to collect fire wood and make an open fire to roast it.

Step 7: Roasting the Chicken in Open-Fire

We made an open fire with old wood collected from the garden. Dried out leaves of coconut tree also helped us to keep the fire going.

Initially, we placed the mud casing over an aluminium plate on a metal stand. When the bottom side of the casing was almost hard, we removed the plate and roasted it on open fire. Then turned it upside down to make it cooked evenly on all sides.

It took us about two hours to roast and make the outer mud casing hard on all sides.

Step 8: Beggar's Chicken Ready...!!!

Removed the roasted Chicken from the fire and allowed it to cool for some time, then broke the hardened mud-casing.

Untied the cotton thread and removed the banana leaf wrapping from around the cooked chicken.

The roasted chicken was rightly done, neither overdone nor under-cooked.

Now the Beggar's Chicken is ready to be served.

Comments

[rockerchandru]

Nice

[antoniraj]

thank you...

[eswariiii]

boss super r u tamilnadu

[antoniraj]

thank you, yes I am from Tamil Nadu

[spylock]

My brother and I dig a hole and put hot coals on the bottom,we wrap whatever we are cooking in banana leaves,add more hot coals on top,cover it and let it cook.I dont think we have ever over cooked anything using this method,but Im gonna try the chicken for sure.

[antoniraj]

thanks for sharing...

[DeeRilee]

I wonder if this would work using a good bed of coals....setting it directly on the coals and putting more hot coals on top of it! That way the chicken might cook on all sides more evenly, and perhaps quicker!

I'm also curious as to what other leaves would work. Banana leaves would be hard to find in my area. I do know where some lotus are growing, but since it's a park, I doubt they would appreciate me picking some! Does anyone know if common waterlily pads would be a substitute?

[antoniraj]

This should work on a bed of coals also... I think you can use common waterlily pads for wrapping, If you can't find any suitable leaf, try with aluminium foil,

[garrettmikesmith]

If access to a grill or oven is available, then check out Beer Butt Chicken.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beer-butt-chicken/

Urban Beggars Chicken.

[antoniraj]

thanks for the link. I will check it out

[silver912targa]

Isn't there a sort like recipe but then with a salt crust?

[vincent7520]

Yes there is !
But do it without the banana leaf !…
It's excellent : I know only my own recipe that I made by a sort of rule of thumb.
Here it goes : get a good kilo of coarse cut salt. Spread a good layer of salt in the bottom of a cast iron casserole, place the chicken on it, spread the rest of the salt taking great care that all the chicken is well covered. Place in oven at medium high temperature. Wait thill the salt forms a hardened crust. Take of from the oven. Peel the crust of the chicken : it's skin MUST come with the salt. Take great care that no salt gets onto the chicken flesh (this is the only tricky part). Serve and enjoy. Very tasty.
As for the chicken itself : it should be emptied of course, stuff it with herbs if you wish. try to close the opening as much as you can (sew it for good measure), season it as you wish (ample use thyme, sage and rosemary make an excellent combination), ad pepper of course and for once be sensible with you cooking (ie. not as I did the first time !…) : do not, I said DO NOT, add salt to the seasoning !!!… 
Fish like sea bream or bass is excellent with the recipe. BUT DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF SCALING IT !!!… If you do salt will enter the flesh and your fish will simply be unedible !!!… Try the fish recipe : this makes the fish real tasty : you will love it !… 

[Suzanne in Orting]

I've lived with a computer geek for so long, that when I read "BUT DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF SCALING IT ", I couldn't help but wonder why you couldn't do more than one. Then, I realized that you meant "removing the scales", not "increasing the scale." Oy! (she said rolling her eyes in chagrin).

Suzanne in Orting, WA

[vincent7520]

Oy ! Oy ! Suzanne !
That's what happens with overspecialization !!!…

We all should be "specialization fluid", such as in Instructables !

Cheers wish you a great week !…

[antoniraj]

I am not aware of that. can you please provide a link..?

[silver912targa]

Well I haven't tried it myself but it's more or less like this: http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2011/01/salt-crusted_chicken.php

[antoniraj]

thank you for the link. I will go through it

[vincent7520]

posted a reply above for you !

[antoniraj]

thank you...

[vincent7520]

Yes there is !
But do it without the banana leaf !…
It's excellent : I know only my own recipe that I made by a sort of rule of thumb.
Here it goes : get a good kilo of coarse cut salt. Spread a good layer of salt in the bottom of a cast iron casserole, place the chicken on it, spread the rest of the salt taking great care that all the chicken is well covered. Place in oven at medium high temperature. Wait thill the salt forms a hardened crust. Take of from the oven. Peel the crust of the chicken : it's skin MUST come with the salt. Take great care that no salt gets onto the chicken flesh (this is the only tricky part). Serve and enjoy. Very tasty.
As for the chicken itself : it should be emptied of course, stuff it with herbs if you wish. try to close the opening as much as you can (sew it for good measure), season it as you wish (ample use thyme, sage and rosemary make an excellent combination), ad pepper of course and for once be sensible with you cooking (ie. not as I did the first time !…) : do not, I said DO NOT, add salt to the seasoning !!!… 
Fish like sea bream or bass is excellent with the recipe. BUT DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF SCALING IT !!!… If you do salt will enter the flesh and your fish will simply be unedible !!!… Try the fish recipe : this makes the fish real tasty : you will love it !…