Taiwanese Chicken with Dipping Sauce

[Utenya]

Hello all,

Just came back from Taiwan not too long ago and went to a place by the name of Shenkeng (my Chinese is not good enough to type it, by my computer is good enough to Copy and Paste! 深坑鄉), about 20 or so minutes away from Taipei. Boasting some of the best stinky tofu, they have three varieties, skewered & grilled with a sauce + condiment, fried & boiled in a soup, and a boiled non fried variety. My relatives said that the water they use in Shenkeng is unique and that's why their tofu is so good.

But I digress, this post is about a chicken dish I had there. Below were chickens outside of a different restaurant than the one I ate the dish at. However almost every stinky tofu restaurant had a big pot of braised stinky tofu and strung up chickens in the front of their respective store. I haven't seen such yellow skinned chickens in the United States. These ones looked a lot more appetizing than the ones I can get form my local grocery store.

I'm assuming that the cooking procedure is similar to making Hainan Chicken Rice, boiled. Up close, the chickens looked rather dry, and rubbed with salt. However when served the chicken was room temperature, perfectly cooked, and very moist, including the breast. Does anyone know the specifics as to how the chicken was prepared? Do they put in some tenderizing agent on the bird before boiling? I have tried cooking Hainan Chicken Rice a few times, and have never gotten chicken close to the texture that I had here. Below is a close up of the tasty chickens.

The sauce was also very delicious. It was soy based, probably had some chicken broth since it was pretty light. There were carmelized shallots and maybe some added sugar as the sauce was slightly sweet, pieces of raw minced ginger, a slight spiciness from something I couldn't pick apart, and I think some pickled daikon (Luo Buo Gan?) that gave me that rubbery crunchy texture.

Does anyone know the recipe to the chicken and/or the sauce or even the name of the dish? I would love to replicate this dish at home. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

P.S. Is there a way so that photos don't come out so big?

[Shalmanese]

I believe that dense, tight texture comes from dunking the chicken directly from the poaching liquid into ice water.

[Utenya]

I believe that dense, tight texture comes from dunking the chicken directly from the poaching liquid into ice water.

Hmmm, I believe I've always skipped that crucial part whenever attempting Hainan rice. Ehehehe. ^^;

[Prawncrackers]

Those chickens look like the ones you get in Hong Kong too. The flesh is incredibly dense and moist, and the skin is deliciously thick. I think the prime factor involved are the chickens themselves not the cooking method. I cook a lot of Hainan chicken rice, the local UK and French chucks that i use are very tasty but very different to those Asian ones. The dunking in ice cold water method doesn't set the gelatine in the birds that i use.

Anyway I've seen a HK foodie TV show recently where they went to Taiwan and had salt-baked chicken. Maybe that's what you had?

[Utenya]

I asked my relatives what was the name of the dish, and they called it bai zhan ji. It's like hainan ji fan, but you are right Prawncrackers, they said the kind of chicken used is very special which gives it the unique texture. It's boiled, and after it's cooked they rub it with salt.

Still no luck with the sauce however.

[CNLink]

The chicken is poached instead of steamed or baked. When the chicken has reached medium-rare it is taken out of the pot and immediately dumped into ice water to stop further cooking. This method keeps the meat at medium-rare and causes the skin to shrink, thus the nice-looking appearance.

The common ingredient in the sauce are garlic, ginger, chili, spring onion, sugar, dark soy sauce, yellow rice wine and a touch of dark vinegar. Depending on different recipes sesame oil or chili oil is added. Experiment with these ingredients to make the sauce to your taste.