Drunken Chicken 醉鸡

Drunken Chicken (醉鸡) is a cold chicken dish from Shaoxing (绍兴) in Zhejiang, made by steeping cooked chicken in Shaoxing yellow wine (黄酒). Chinese Wikipedia describes it as a well-known Zhejiang dish, usually served as a cold platter. The China National Tourist Office in Singapore calls it a dish that Shaoxing households set out at festivals and everyday banquets.

How it is made

The China National Tourist Office describes the method this way: a whole free-range chicken is blanched to remove any gamey smell, cooked through and left to cool. It is then sealed and soaked in Shaoxing yellow wine with a spice mix and the original cooking stock, so the wine works slowly into the meat. It relies on neither stir-frying nor heavy seasoning; the point is the slow steeping in local wine.

Flavour and texture

The finished chicken has clear, glossy skin and firm, tender meat. The tourist office describes it as moderately salted, with a light wine aroma that is mellow rather than sharp, and says it tastes especially good cold.

How it is eaten

The tourist office suggests three ways to eat it: sliced and plain, with Shaoxing yellow wine, or as a cold starter on a banquet table. Tide News (潮新闻) notes that Shaoxing, as a yellow-wine town, has a saying that "anything can be made drunk" (万物皆可醉), and names drunken chicken, drunken crab and drunken shrimp as classics of Shaoxing cuisine. In the old town, restaurants that specialise in Shaoxing food serve it alongside stinky tofu and soy-cured duck. The restaurant Xunbaoji (寻宝记) sells its version as the drunken chicken that the poets Li Bai (李白) and He Zhizhang (贺知章) ate with their wine.