Maozui Brine-Braised Chicken 毛嘴卤鸡

How it is made

The bureau lays down two rules for the bird. It must be a free-range chicken of the kind villagers let roam around their houses, not one raised on commercial feed, and it must be a rooster, because a hen carries more fat while a rooster is all muscle. The chickens are described as raised on mixed grains.

The bird is braised in a brine that is kept and reused, which the bureau calls a century-old cycling brine, seasoned with eighteen medicinal herbs and natural spices, among them honey, eucommia (杜仲), goji and star anise. Local wisdom holds that the older the brine, the better; how old the dish itself is remains unclear. Before refrigerators, a shop with good trade reboiled the pot every day, while one idle for a day risked the brine turning.

Flavour and texture

The meat is fine and tender, rich without being greasy, fragrant and mellow, with a flavour that lingers. Because a rooster is used, the bureau says the meat has some chew to it.

Where it comes from

The bureau names Liu Baolin (刘保林), active around the founding of the People's Republic, and an old man known as Chen (陈记老人) in the reform era as the people who carried the recipe on. In 1987 two restaurateurs, Liu Jinzhu (刘金柱) of the Fanghua restaurant (芳华酒楼) and Zhu Luyun (朱陆云) of the Baiyun restaurant (白云酒楼), set out to revive the local dish and had Chen, then the only maker, who braised just two chickens a day and sold them along the street, supply their restaurants. After a little over a year the chicken was widely praised and several other makers began braising it.

In 2025 the Xiantao city government reported that Maozui Brine-Braised Chicken had been entered in Hubei's fifth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage.