Tashan Pomegranate Chicken 塔山石榴鸡
Tashan Pomegranate Chicken is featured among the local specialties of Anhui.
Tashan Pomegranate Chicken (塔山石榴鸡) is chicken raised under the pomegranate trees of Lieshan District (烈山区) in Huaibei (淮北), northern Anhui, and cooked there as earth-pot chicken (地锅鸡). The birds are fed on pomegranate seeds, and growing the Tashan pomegranate (塔山石榴) is Huaibei's signature industry.
Ingredients
The dish starts with the bird. In Lieshan, farm chickens grow up eating pomegranate seeds and drinking mountain spring water; the operator of a farmhouse restaurant serving Liuyuan earth-pot chicken says the dish uses local chickens kept free-range in the pomegranate orchards and fed on pomegranate seeds and green grass. People's Daily Online describes the meat of these pomegranate chickens as firmer.
How it is made
The chicken is cooked in an earth pot (地锅) over a fire of dead pomegranate branches. People's Daily Online calls the Liuyuan earth-pot chicken (榴园地锅鸡) of Lieshan an intangible-heritage food and traces its technique to early Ming dynasty garrison troops who cooked chicken on stone stoves.
Where it comes from
Tashan pomegranates are sweet and sour, with thin skins and soft seeds, and received national geographical-indication protection in 2012. Liuyuan village (榴园村) in Lieshan town (烈山镇) has grown pomegranates for several hundred years and keeps an intact Ming–Qing pomegranate orchard; the orchard and the village's vernacular buildings are an Anhui provincial protected heritage site. The village lists pomegranate chicken among its pomegranate products, beside juice, wine and tea.
How it is eaten
It is a farmhouse meal: in Lieshan, signboards reading 'Huaibei earth-pot chicken' (淮北地锅鸡) hang at farmers' doors. A farmhouse restaurant serving Liuyuan earth-pot chicken operates near the winding Wanbei Sichuan–Tibet Road (皖北川藏线), a scenic road that links the pomegranate museum of the Four Seasons Pomegranate Garden (四季榴园) scenic area, the Ming–Qing orchard and other sights in eastern Lieshan. In 2022 Liuyuan earth-pot chicken was one of the Huaibei dishes among the 200 chosen in the Anhui culture and tourism department's 'Anhui Good Taste, Hundred County Famous Snacks' (皖美好味道·百县名小吃) selection. Liuyuan village's pomegranates ripen around the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-23. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.