Sanyou Shenxian Chicken 三游神仙鸡

Sanyou Shenxian Chicken (三游神仙鸡) is a traditional dish of Yichang (宜昌), Hubei: a whole young chicken marinated in a clay pot and braised in stock with spices and rock sugar. Its name, roughly 'Three Travellers' Immortal Chicken', ties it to Sanyou Cave (三游洞), a karst cave in the cliffs beside the Yangtze about 7 km north-west of Yichang, at the mouth of the Xiling Gorge (西陵峡).

How it is made

The Hubei government description starts from a plump, tender young chicken. It is cleaned and put whole into a clay pot, marinated with several seasonings, then brought to the boil with stock, spices and rock sugar. The heat is lowered and the chicken simmers until the sauce is thick and the bird cooked. The result is glossy, fragrant and mellow, keeping the chicken's own flavour.

Yichang chefs vary it. At a 2024 cooking contest in Dianjun District (点军区), where it was the set dish, one chef stir-fried an 18-month-old free-range cockerel with spices in local rapeseed oil and lard, then stewed it into a chicken hotpot whose broth is used afterwards for cooking other ingredients. The chef of the Three Gorges Hotel (三峡宾馆) braised chicken wings and pig's trotters in a master stock and finished them in a clay pot with shallots, ginger and garlic.

Where it comes from

Local legend links the name to the 'Three Su', the Song dynasty writers Su Xun (苏洵) and his sons Su Shi (苏轼) and Su Zhe (苏辙). Passing through Yiling (夷陵), the old name of Yichang, on the way from Meizhou (眉州) to the capital to sit the examinations, they drank and wrote poems at Sanyou Cave and felt like immortals, so the chicken they ate was named for the visit. The poet Lu You (陆游) is also said to have eaten it when he climbed to the cave in 1169.

Hubei Daily calls it an intangible-heritage dish. Its heritage bearer, Ye Qingnian (叶庆年), judged the 2024 contest and said people had gradually forgotten the dish and that the contest had brought it wide attention again.