Porcelain-Clay Baked Chicken 瓷泥煨鸡

Porcelain-Clay Baked Chicken (瓷泥煨鸡) is a traditional Jingdezhen (景德镇) dish of stuffed chicken wrapped in lotus leaves, sealed in wine-laced porcelain clay and roasted in the hot cinders of a porcelain kiln. In 2018 the China Cuisine Association (中国烹饪协会) named it, as Jingdezhen clay-baked chicken (景德镇泥煨鸡), one of Jiangxi's ten classic regional dishes.

Where it comes from

The dish is tied to Jingdezhen's porcelain trade. Tradition holds that it began in the Qing dynasty with the city's porcelain workers, who roasted clay-wrapped chickens in hot kiln cinders. The food programme Flavour (味道) on CCTV-10 presented it in 2021 as the meeting of chicken with the kaolin (高岭土) that goes into porcelain.

How it is made

As the 2018 listing report tells it, the porcelain workers plucked and opened a young chicken, filled the cavity with minced pork, ginger, spring onion, sesame oil and salt, and wrapped the bird in lotus leaves. They poured Shaoxing rice wine (绍兴老酒) into porcelain clay, mixed it through and packed this wine-laced clay all round the chicken and its leaves. The parcel was buried in the hot cinders of a kiln that had just been opened and roasted for about ten hours. It was then taken out, and the clay and lotus leaves were stripped away before the chicken was eaten.

Flavour and texture

Both Dajiang (大江网), the Jiangxi news site, and the 2018 listing report stress that the chicken comes out of its clay shell whole. The meat is tender and so soft that it falls from the bone, with a rich aroma, and it does not catch in the teeth (食不嵌齿).