Chicken Stewed with Rock Ear Lichen 岩耳炖鸡

Chicken Stewed with Rock Ear Lichen (岩耳炖鸡) is a Zhangjiajie (张家界) dish of free-range chicken slow-stewed with rock ear (岩耳), also called stone ear (石耳), which grows on sandstone cliffs deep in the Wuling Mountains (武陵山脉). The Hunan Department of Culture and Tourism lists it, as rock ear stewed with free-range chicken (岩耳炖土鸡), among Zhangjiajie's ten famous dishes.

Ingredients

The recipe published by the Wulingyuan (武陵源) official tourism site calls for one free-range chicken (土鸡) and 25 g of rock ear, seasoned with cooking wine, salt, MSG, spring onion and ginger. Rock ear comes from sheer cliffs in Wulingyuan, where pickers work hanging from ropes tied round the waist, and the site says it is becoming scarcer. The provincial culture and tourism department notes that rock ear was once sent to court as tribute.

How it is made

The chicken is cleaned, blanched in boiling water and rinsed. The rock ear is soaked in warm water until soft, washed and torn into small pieces. The chicken goes into a pot of water, is brought to the boil and seasoned, then stewed over a low flame until cooked; only then is the rock ear added, and the pot stews on until the meat is falling-apart tender.

Flavour and texture

The Wulingyuan site describes the dish as light in taste with a deep, rich aroma. A Xinhunan feature says the richness of the chicken fat and the mushroom-like fragrance of the rock ear merge in the broth, and quotes the Shizhou county gazetteer (施州县志), which calls rock ear a folk delicacy that is cooked into soup with meat or stewed with chicken. The same feature, written for Yongding District (永定区) at the 2024 Spring Festival, pictures a steaming bowl of it on the New Year's Eve reunion table.