Gai Cha Lao - Drunken Chicken with scallion oil

This dish is pristine and simple. I use silicone tools to keep the chicken intact. The skin is exfoliated to show off the skin. The boozy jelly aspic is subtle and beautifully melts with an accompanying cup of tea. I love this with a large batch of scallion oil.

Some people steam their chickens, which is great but I don’t like getting out more equipment and dishes than I need. I prefer to poach till a little pink at the bone. Reserve the liquid for the wine marinade and save the rest as a very light stock.

Note, I do not make my scallion sauce the authentic way. I really like thinly sliced scallions and love the taste of them with olive oil.

INGREDIENTS

3 lbs (1.3kg) chicken, dark meat preferably

3 tablespoons salt, 

1tsp of ground white pepper

Thumbsworth of ginger, thinly sliced

8 green onions

1 1/2 cup Shaoxing rice wine

2 teaspoon white sugar

ice cubes and water

Sesame oil to brush

DIRECTIONS

1.Mix 2 tbsp salt with white peppercorn. Exfoliate chicken with salt and pepper. Let sit for 30 minutes. 

2. Poach chicken with 6-8 cups of water in a large pot or dutch oven. Add ginger and two whole scallions. Bring to a boil, and then lower to let simmer for ten minutes. Make sure water covers the chicken. Flip the chicken around a little so the skin doesn’t dry out. Let the water run through the cavity of the chicken. Turn off heat. Let the chicken sit in poaching liquid for ten minutes. Let chicken cool to almost room temp. 

3. Shock chicken in cold water with ice. Drain. 

4. If you do choose to use chicken pieces instead of a whole chicken. There will be extra blood that gets introduced to the water. Poaching the chicken whole will have protein scum. Either way, strain the liquid. You can save some for soup. 

5. Mix, 1 cup of poaching liquid with shaoxing wine. Add sugar and 1 tsp salt. 

6. Cut chicken into quarters and place shallow glass pan or bowl. Cover with marinade. Chill overnight. 

Butcher chicken accordingly. Remove major quarters. Use a heavy sharp butcher knife to slip the thigh in thirds, drums in two, and breasts away from rib meat, and five chunks as shows in the picture below.

Serve cold with hot tea and freshly steamed jasmine rice.

Make scallion sauce to go with this.