Lotus Leaf Mud Roasted Chicken
This modern take on traditional beggar's chicken, also called lotus-scented mud-roasted chicken, uses Qingyuan chicken as its core ingredient. The chicken is first marinated, then wrapped in pork net fat and lotus leaves, before being buried in a scorching-hot mixture of yellow mud powder and charcoal ash to roast until fully cooked.
Ingredients
Qingyuan chicken (trimmed, cleaned, patted dry)
1 approx 900 g
pork caul fat
150 g
refined salt
10 g
MSG
5 g
white sugar
30 g
chicken bouillon powder
5 g
sand ginger powder
15 g
light soy sauce
100 g
Shaoxing Huadiao wine
150 g
dried shiitake strips
50 g
bamboo shoot strips
25 g
star anise (Chinese anise)
1 g
bay leaf
1 g
dark soy sauce
15 g
yellow mud powder (mixed with charcoal ash in a 5:1 mud-to-ash ratio)
Instructions
1
Marinating
Trim and clean the Qingyuan chicken, pat it dry, then marinate it in a seasoned liquid mixed from refined salt, MSG, white sugar, chicken bouillon powder, sand ginger powder, light soy sauce (light-colored soy sauce) and Shaoxing Huadiao wine for about 30 minutes.
2
Wrapping
Coat the marinated chicken all over with dark soy sauce (dark-colored soy sauce), stuff it with dried shiitake strips, bamboo shoot strips, star anise and bay leaf, then wrap the entire chicken in pork caul fat. Next, wrap the chicken in a lotus leaf, then cover the lotus leaf with two sheets of wrapping paper, and finally wrap the whole bundle in aluminum foil.
3
Mud Roasting
Mix the yellow mud powder with charcoal ash in a 5:1 mud-to-ash ratio, place the mixture in a channel steel tray, and heat it over a charcoal fire until the mud is thoroughly hot. Then, shovel the hot mud onto the fire pit, first spread a 3 cm thick layer of mud as the base, place the wrapped chicken on top, then spread another thick layer of hot mud over the chicken to cover it completely. After about 20 minutes, take out the wrapped chicken, flip it so the side that was at the bottom is now facing up, then cover it with hot mud again. Roast (braise) for a total of 45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.
