Puning Bean Paste Baked Chicken 普宁豆酱焗鸡

Ingredients

The seasoning is a fermented soybean paste from Puning (普宁), whose town of Hongyang (洪阳) the Puning culture, radio, tourism and sports bureau calls its birthplace. The paste is made from soybeans with flour, salt and water; the beans are split, soaked and fermented, then left in the sun for three to five months until golden brown. Records cited by the bureau date large-scale production to the Daoguang (道光) reign of the Qing dynasty. Macao Daily notes that the finished paste is golden and keeps its beans whole, with a light, savoury taste, and reports that it is listed among Guangdong's provincial intangible-heritage foods.

How it is made

In the version described by Yangcheng Evening News, Puning bean paste is mixed with sesame paste, a little sugar, sesame oil, dark soy sauce and coriander, rubbed and massaged over the whole bird, and the rest is stuffed inside. Slices of pork fat line the bottom of a clay pot, the chicken goes on top with a little water, and it cooks over high and then low heat for twenty minutes, with the lid left on and no water added. The chicken is then chopped, and the juices left in the pot are thickened and poured over it.

A version given in Macao Daily by a master chef of Cantonese cuisine first fries the salted chicken golden in a wok. It is then simmered covered in water with ginger, garlic, Shaoxing wine and fried bean paste, and the cook lifts the bird by the head every three minutes or so to drain it, so that it cooks evenly inside and out. The chopped chicken is served in a clay pot with its sauce, and extra bean paste may be added at the table.

Flavour and texture

Yangcheng Evening News describes the meat as smooth and tender, with a strong bean-paste aroma. The same newspaper says the dish inspired a crab version, in which mud crab is cooked in bean paste with plenty of fried garlic.