Daohan Clay-Pot Steamed Chicken 盗汗鸡

How it is made

The dish depends on the daohan pot (盗汗锅), which Guizhou Radio and Television (贵州广播电视台) describes as a local earthenware vessel in four parts: a base, a steaming bowl, a top pot and a lid. A fresh free-range chicken is cleaned and set in the pot, other ingredients can go in with it, and it is steamed without any water being added.

In the broadcaster's fuller account, the whole chicken is first marinated for two hours with a house seasoning pack, then placed in the steaming bowl and steamed for more than four hours. Steam rising from the base meets the cold top pot, condenses into distilled water and drips onto the chicken, beading on it the way sweat does.

Flavour and texture

Guizhou Satellite TV describes the finished broth as yellow as jade and clear enough to see through, and says the method leaves the chicken's own fresh, tender flavour intact. The broadcaster's other feature calls the broth fresh and savoury and the meat tender.

Ingredients

The bird named in the recipe is the Xingyi short-legged chicken (兴义矮脚鸡), a breed with a farming history of several hundred years. The birds range freely in the hill woods and spend the year outdoors, which the broadcaster credits for meat that is fine, tender and firm. The seasoning pack is a house recipe and its contents are not listed.

Where it comes from

The name comes from traditional Chinese medicine, where daohan (盗汗, literally "stolen sweat") means night sweats: abnormal sweating after falling asleep that stops on waking. Guizhou Radio and Television credits Zhang Tianyin (张天银), born into a family of Chinese-medicine doctors, with devising a medicinal dish of chicken steamed over water in the Xianfeng reign of the Qing dynasty as a remedy, combining diet with medicinal ingredients; people came to call it daohan chicken. The broadcaster's other feature ties the name to the cooking instead: hot air from the bottom of the pot meets the cold top, and the vapour clings to the chicken like sweat.