Wine-Lees Cured Chicken 糟鸡

Wine-Lees Cured Chicken (糟鸡) is a speciality of Shengzhou (嵊州), associated with the Spring Festival table. Writing for Shengzhou News (嵊州新闻网) in 2016, Xu Huadang (徐华铛) recalled its distinctive wine aroma and his mother packing pieces in glutinous-rice paper for him to take away to school.

Chicken layered with lees

Xu describes rubbing cooked chicken with salt and laying it in a watertight container, with rice-wine lees between the layers. The contents are pressed down and the lid sealed; his account gives ten to fifteen days before opening. The lees are the residue left after glutinous-rice wine is pressed.

The holiday kitchen

The chicken was commonly sealed before the New Year and eaten during the holiday period. Xu also records a further use for the lees after the meat was finished: they were steamed with hucong onions (胡葱) and finished with a little cooked lard, making a dish for the Qingming (清明) season. His family continued the custom of sending the chicken away with a child leaving home to study.