(6 portions)
Drunken Chicken is a Chinese classic, the equivalent of a cold cut, similar in concept to jellied ox tongue. It is essentially succulent bite sized chunks of chicken that are infused with flavour, perfect as a cold starter or a one piece amuse bouche. Making it takes quite a bit of time but requires next to no effort or skill, since my recipe doesn’t involve steaming and uses very few ingredients. As an added plus, you can make your Drunken Chicken well ahead of time and keep in the fridge until its needed.
Ingredients
- Chicken Legs (2, leg and thigh, deboned)
- Chinese Wine
- Liquid Smoke
- Perilla Oil
- Salt
- Sugar
Marination and Cooking
- Brine 2 boneless chicken legs in 1.5 cups of cold water containing 1 heaped T of salt and 1t sugar for 4 hours. If its a hot day, add a few ice cubes to the water every hour or keep the chicken in the fridge for the four hours.
- Drain the chicken and trim off any visible clumps of fat with kitchen shears. Marinate in a mixture of 6T of Chinese wine and 2t of liquid smoke for an hour.
- Place a large sheet of foil (refer to the photo for size) on a plate and press the foil to the plate to capture the depressed centre of the plate. Spoon 1T perilla oil into the middle of the foil and then place one chicken leg with the skin side down on the foil. Rotate the chicken 360 degrees to spread out the oil. Spoon half of the marinade over the chicken.
- Wrap the chicken in the foil. The first step is the bring the 2 long edges together and fold/roll the edge until you get a flat tube. Next you roll up the other two edges until you get a parcel. As you do the folding, take care to flatten all the rolls neatly to make the parcel as water tight as possible. Also, try to trap as little air as possible inside the parcel as this air will expand in the oven.
- Repeat the process for the second chicken leg; both parcels should be able to fit onto the toaster oven tray.
- Preheat the oven to 180oC (360oF). Set the timer for 20 minutes and place the tray in the oven.
- After the toaster oven turns itself off, leave the parcels undisturbed in the toaster oven until they reach room temperature. I usually leave them in the toaster for 2 hours or more.
- Put the parcels into the fridge. They should be in the fridge for several hours at minimum and in fact you can keep them in the fridge for several days as the meat is nicely sealed up.
Preparation
- When its time to serve your Drunken Chicken, unwrap the foil and remove the white solidified fat with a fork. You must do this quickly as it softens very soon after it leaves the fridge.
- The chicken will be encased in a jelly created from chicken essence and what is left of the wine after all the alcohol has evapourated. This is the all important gravy of Drunken Chicken. Scrape off as much of the jelly as you can into a bowl. Add 2T of boiling water to the jelly and leave the bowl in a bath of hot water to warm up.
- Meanwhile, cut the meat into bite sized pieces and arrange then on to a serving plate or bowl. You may choose to put them into multiple pieces of smaller crockery if you intend to serve individual portions.
- When the jelly has fully liquefied, spoon the resulting liquid over the meat. The general idea is for the meat to be still cold while the gravy is at room temperature.
Notes
- If find certain ingredients hard to come by, you can use substitutes. Sherry is the standard western alternate to Chinese wine, and oil infused with any flavour, say walnut or rosemary will work just fine. In this sense what I have described is a cooking style in addition to a recipe for a specific dish.
- If you are a purist and love the taste of wine in your food, you may choose to add 2T of Chinese Wine instead of 2T of water in step 2 above.
- It will be perfectly fine if you use frozen chicken, because of the brining. You can also use other parts of the chicken.
- When the parcels are put into the fridge I suggest you place them on a plate as they very often leak very slightly, until the jelly has formed.
Kobi's Kitchen 