What's up everyone?
Today we're making Salt Baked Chicken,
a dish my dad has made thousands of times.
Hello, everyone!
Today, we’ll be learning how to make Salt Baked Chicken.
The process is very simple.
We won't be going the traditional route of baking in stir-fried salt.
It's poached in water first.
The name of this dish is Salt Baked Chicken,
a direct translation of the Chinese, Jim Guk Gai.
Like my dad said, this is not the traditional way to make this dish,
which is to completely cover a whole chicken
with a large amount of stir-fried salt then baking it.
This results in a tender perfectly cooked chicken
with a smoky salty flavor, which you can pull apart by hand.
Today, we'll be learning an alternate
and simpler method of preparing this classic dish.
As an overview, we'll first poach the whole chicken on low heat,
then use an ice-bath to seal in the chicken's juices.
Then we'll create the essential salty sauce
by stir-frying salt and mixing it with sand ginger powder and sesame oil.
Lastly, we'll tear apart the chicken by hand,
mix the meat with our sauce, and plate.
My dad's method is much easier to do at home and just as delicious.
We're going to first poach the chicken until it's cooked.
Get the water boiling, and then put the chicken in.
Before putting the chicken in, pull the drumstick down.
Make sure the legs have come away from the body.
That way, everything will cook more easily when you poach it.
Punch a hole right here.
If you don't make this hole, the water can't flow through.
Three people asked, "What kind of chicken do you use?"
We use gui fei chicken, free range chicken.
Of course, you can use other kinds of chicken, as long as it's not too big.
About 3 lbs is the best.
Even white chicken is small enough,
as long as it's not too big of a chicken.
All right, let's put the chicken in.
The water's boiling.
Before you leave it to cook, lift it up three times,
so that the hot water can flow through the cavity.
All right, put it all in, put the chicken feet in too.
Once the chicken is in, put the lid on.
Turn the heat down the the lowest setting.
The chicken will be cooked in about 35 minutes.
What my dad is doing is also called poaching,
where we cook ingredients
by submerging them in simmering liquid.
This is very similar to how bak chit gai
and the ever popular Hainanese chicken dishes are made.
So after poaching the chicken for 35 minutes on low heat,
we're going to prepare an ice-bath for it in a large bowl.
Alright, the chicken is cooked through.
You can poke the thigh to see if it's cooked.
The meat is thickest here, so if the juice isn't bloody, it's done.
Take it out.
Poke your chopsticks through the wing, just like that.
Put it in the ice bath.
This way, the chicken will retain all its juices.
Then the chicken will be tasty.
We're going to keep the chicken in the ice-bath for about 5 minutes.
How do you keep the chicken juicy?
It's simple, just soak it in an ice water bath,
and once it cools down, the juices can't escape.
Right, Hong Doy?
Now I'm going to stir-fry the salt
and make the sauce for the chicken.
The distinctiveness of the dish is to stir-fry the salt to make it fragrant.
Use 2 tbsp of salt.
Stir-fry the salt so it's aromatic.
With the heat on medium, we'll stir fry the salt for about one minute.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
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head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
Okay.
After a minute, turn off the heat and pour the salt into a bowl.
1 tsp sand ginger powder.
Mix it into the salt.
Make sure you don't add it to the wok when you're stir-frying,
because sand ginger powder burns very easily.
The heat from the salt will already make the sand ginger very fragrant.
Put some in, a bit more, a bit tastier!
An essential ingredient in this dish, sand ginger, or saa1 goeng1 (沙薑),
is actually not a type of ginger at all.
Though closely related, it is actually a variety of galangal,
a plant that has many variants
that are used throughout Southeast Asian cuisines
such as in Thai and Lao tom yum soups.
Sand ginger, also known by its scientific name, kaempferia galanga,
and other common names such as kencur or aromatic ginger,
is also used in Asian herbal medicine
and of course used in certain dishes
for its distinct peppery and aromatic taste.
It can be found in many forms at your local Asian market:
fresh, dried and sliced, or like we have here, powdered.
The sauce is basically ready, just add the rest of the salt.
Now, we'll add 2 tbsp of sesame oil.
1 tbsp of lard.
Lard is traditionally used for this sauce,
but you can also substitute olive oil for it.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
I don't use lard often.
I'm using the fat that I saved from roasting pork.
Why don't people want to use lard?
They want to be more healthy.
And not eat a lot of animal fat.
They'd prefer more vegetable oils in their diets.
But the taste is totally different.
If you use lard, it is so much more attractive.
But in terms of your own health, you can make your own choice.
I wanted to take a quick moment to thank today's sponsor, Vite Ramen.
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That's it.
The sauce is nice!
We're mixing the sauce into the cooked chicken.
It's not the traditional Salt Baked Chicken.
This is East River Salt Baked Chicken.
East River Salt Baked Chicken is all about this sauce.
Is the other way tastier, or is it the same?
Each one has its strengths.
This one is juicier.
The one that is baked in a layer of salt is drier, but perhaps more fragrant.
East River Salt Baked Chicken comes from
the East River restaurant in Guangzhou.
There are only a few restaurants that specialize in making it at scale.
They cater more to outside visitors.
They changed it to this method that I'm using.
Lots of people eat it often.
Even I've been to that restaurant to eat East River Salt Baked Chicken.
We're pulling the chicken apart, take the head off and set it aside.
We'll start by removing the head,
wings and drumsticks from the body of the chicken.
Pull the thighs off.
The thighs with the drumsticks.
Then we'll break the chicken into two length-wise.
Now, we'll pull the chicken breast off.
We'll remove as much meat and skin from the back of the chicken as we can.
Put this here.
Set that down and debone the thighs.
Then we'll do the same with the meat and skin on the drumsticks.
Take all the meat off.
Put it back in the middle.
Why are you arranging it like that?
So it looks like a chicken.
In Chinese culture, a whole chicken symbolizes prosperity and perfection,
which in Cantonese is jyun mei (完美)
so it's important to plate the dish
Put the chicken back together, see?
Put the chicken head here.
My dad is using his hands to rip up the chicken here
because it preserves the soft and juicy texture of the meat
and also prevents you from cutting across the grain incorrectly.
He also just thinks it's easier this way.
You know, if you can't get a whole chicken with the head,
I know it's more perfect, right?
But say you really want this dish, you can only go to Safeway,
you cook it the same way, right?
Sure, you can make this with just a thigh!
You don't need an entire chicken.
Poach the thigh, pull it apart and mix the sauce in,
it's the sauce that's most important, son.
For the rest of the bones, my dad recommends keeping them
to make a flavorful broth.
We'll put the chicken skin back on top too.
We've pulled it all apart now.
No need to make the pieces too small.
After pulling it apart, we start mixing the sauce in.
As the sauce is very salty, it's best to start with a small amount.
We can always add more later on if it's not flavorful enough.
Mix it up.
Want to taste it?
Yes!
It's tender, isn't it?
Tender, tasty, and fragrant, right?
Silky, right?
It's perfect.
Put it all on here--my hands are greasy.
Put it on the plate, and remember to put the chicken skin on top.
All right, put the chicken skin on too.
Certainly, while the chicken skin will look nice,
but not everyone likes to eat it.
Put the chicken feet on the plate as well.
Everyone, East River Salt Baked Chicken is complete!
I hope you all enjoy it!
Hong Doy, time to eat chicken!
I'm excited!
Cheers!
That one is the topping sauce, put a little bit.
Cam Cam, try some chicken?
One thing I need to remind our audience,
if you make this sauce, try it a little at a time,
because it's a really, really salty sauce.
Did you grow up eating this?
I ate it as an adult in Guangzhou.
Not at home?
Not in my hometown, not when I was young.
No, we never ate this.
We ate a salty chicken dish but not this one.
Which do you prefer, this or bak chit gai?
I like this one.
I like both.
This one tastes better, and bak chit gai is milder.
I like this one because I like the salt.
After you stir-fry the salt, it tastes different.
It's called waai jim (淮鹽), spiced salt.
Mixing that with sand ginger, it's heaven!
You like chicken?
Yay!
Yum, it tastes good!
It's bedtime, I'm too tired.
I'm too tired to answer your question.
Leave me a message and I'll answer next time.
I'll let you know.
Okay, bye!
Bye everybody!