Rich and savory sauce, served with great flair—the sauce coats the chicken, making it incredibly tender and silky.
The sizzling clay pot cooking method involves placing fresh ingredients directly into an extremely hot clay pot and stir-frying them, a unique Cantonese cooking technique that only the adventurous and food-loving people of Guangdong could have devised. The clay pot's excellent heat retention is amplified by preheating it for a long time to store ample heat, so the moment meat hits the pot, its surface sears instantly, locking in juices and delivering a bouncy, tender, and crisp texture. The intense heat also makes the sauce intensely aromatic and causes the rice wine to steam, giving this dish a wonderfully "primal, wild" character!
Ingredients
Main Ingredients
Half of a young chicken (about 350 g / 12 oz)
For the best results, use young roosters or, as a second choice, chicken thighs; chicken breast is too dry and should not be used.
If using a smaller clay pot, reduce the chicken to about 250 g (roughly ½ lb) to prevent excess liquid from being released.
Seasonings
15 g (about 1 tbsp) Chu Hou paste (fermented soybean paste)
15 g (about 1 tablespoon) hoisin sauce
10 g (about 2 teaspoons) oyster sauce
10 g (about 2 teaspoons) yellow rice wine
Dark soy sauce, a small amount
Other Seasonings
Shallots, scallions, ginger, garlic, and cilantro - each to taste
Salt, cornstarch, and Shaoxing wine — a pinch of each
Dried shallots are a very small type of onion, about the size of a chestnut, with a superior flavor; since they are not easy to find, you can substitute regular onions.
Special equipment
Clay pot
The wok must be extremely hot to fully cook the chicken, so use a high-quality clay pot, otherwise it may crack from the heat. Be careful not to burn yourself. The clay pot should be large enough; otherwise, when the raw meat goes in, the temperature drops sharply, causing the chicken to release too much water, and the dish will not turn out successfully.
Instructions
Instructions
Preparation
Step 1: Chop the chicken, bones and all, into pieces. Marinate briefly with a splash of Shaoxing wine and a pinch of salt, tossing to coat. Finally, add a little cornstarch and mix well (Image 2).
*Chicken pieces should not be cut too large, or they will not cook through easily.
Step 2: Trim and peel the shallots, cut the scallions into sections, slice the garlic cloves in half, cut the ginger into thick slices, and cut the cilantro into sections (Image 3). Combine all the zhezhe sauce seasonings in a bowl and stir well to blend; set aside.
*Prepare the jje jje sauce in advance at this step to avoid delays during the stir-frying process later.
Heat the clay pot until hot
Place the clay pot over high heat until very hot, add plenty of oil, then stir-fry the ginger slices and garlic until they turn slightly golden and release their fragrance (Image 4).
*The "heat until very hot" here means the clay pot should be heated until it's just starting to smoke.
*The clay pot must be fully heated before adding oil; if you add oil first, the pot won't have stored enough heat, causing the oil temperature to become too high and potentially catch fire, and heating oil for too long is also unhealthy.
*Since the clay pot gets extremely hot, adding cold oil may cause it to crack, so it's recommended to briefly warm the oil in another pan before adding it to the clay pot.
*Use more oil than you normally would for stir-frying, because raw meat absorbs a lot of oil; if you use too little, the meat will release its moisture and the flavor won't be as rich.
Stir-fry the chicken until cooked through.
④ Keep the heat on high, add the chicken to the clay pot, use chopsticks to separate the pieces, and stir-fry until the surface turns slightly white, about 30 seconds (Figure 5). Then add the prepared sauce and stir-fry until the chicken is about 70% cooked, about 30 seconds (Figure 6). Next, add the dried shallots and stir-fry to combine (Figure 7), cover with a lid, and braise over high heat for 1 minute.
*Cooking time depends on the actual situation; the times given here are just a reference. Do not add too much meat, as it will release too much liquid.
*Similarly, use moderate amounts of scallions, cilantro, and shallots—too much will also release water, and moisture is the biggest enemy of this dish.
*The sauce is already salty enough, so no additional salt is needed.
After 1 minute, remove the lid, quickly add the scallion and cilantro segments (Image 8), then immediately cover the pot and drizzle a small amount of Shaoxing wine around the lid edge before serving.
*Finally, drizzling with Shaoxing wine before serving enhances the aroma; for added color, you can also add a small amount of green and red bell peppers.
This recipe is versatile and can be adapted to your liking.
The clay pot can be used to cook many dishes, requiring ingredients that are tender and crisp; besides chicken, you can also use raw intestines. Of course, the most famous version is made with eel, but good eel is hard to find these days and quite troublesome to prepare at home. Whichever you choose, be very careful not to burn yourself.