Dad's Salt Baked Chicken, Perfected Over 61 Years
Why this recipe
Most salt baked chicken recipes online are tested only a handful of times. My dad used to make this dish multiple times a day, every day, for 60+ years and can make this in his sleep.
I know you'll love it as much as our community does! This recipe has over 123K views, 2.9K likes on YouTube.
The name of this dish is Salt Baked Chicken, a direct translation of the Chinese, Jim Guk Gai (鹽焗雞). This is not the traditional way to make this dish, which is to completely cover a whole chicken with a large amount of stir-fried salt then bake it.
Instead, this recipe is an alternate and simpler method of preparing the classic dish. It's called the East River Salt Baked Chicken. According to my dad, it comes from the East River restaurant in Guangzhou.
There are only a few restaurants that specialize in making it at scale. They cater to outside visitors and they changed its cooking process to this method that we are using.
Is one tastier than the other or does it taste the same? According to my dad, each one has its strengths. This recipe is juicier. The one that is baked in a layer of salt is drier but is more fragrant.
This recipe is all about the sauce and results in a tender perfectly cooked chicken with a smoky salty flavor, which you can pull apart by hand.
Ingredients
Instructions
Prepare chicken
To prepare the chicken (3 lb), pull the drumsticks down, away from the body to loosen the joints up. This way, everything will cook more easily when poaching it.
Make a hole at the base of the neck that penetrates the chicken's cavity. This lets the water flow through the chicken to cook the meat better and to drain the water from the chicken once finished.
Cook chicken
Boil a large pot of water. Make sure to have a large enough pot and water to cover the whole chicken (3 lb).
While placing the chicken feet first into the water, dip the chicken into the water several times to allow the water to go through the inside. This helps get the water into the chicken and have it flow through the cavity.
Place the lid over the pot and turn the heat down to the lowest setting. Poach the chicken for 35 minutes or until cooked.
Remove chicken
Prepare an ice-water bath in a large bowl.
Poke the chicken thigh to see if it's cooked. The meat is the thicket there, so if the juice isn't bloody, it's done.
Remove the chicken from the pot and submerge it into an ice-water bath. Allow it to cool for five minutes.
This way, the chicken will retain its moisture.
Make sauce
The distinctiveness of the dish is to stir-fry the salt to make it fragrant. Stir-fried salt is called "wai jim" or spiced salt. And that's the base of this sauce.
Heat a wok on high heat, pour the salt (2 tbsp) into wok and stir for several minutes.
Remove salt (2 tbsp) from wok after stirring for 1 minute and place into a small bowl.
Add the sand ginger powder (1 tsp), sesame oil (2 tbsp), lard (1 tbsp) and mix well.
Make sure to not add the ginger powder into the wok when you're stir-frying salt. The sand ginger powder will burn very easily from direct heat. The heat from the salt will be enough to make the sand ginger very fragrant.
Set aside.
Shred and plate
Remove the chicken from the ice-water bath.
Break apart the chicken and shred the meat by hand. Using your hands to rip the chicken is important because it preserves the soft and juicy texture of the meat and also prevents you from cutting across the grain incorrectly. My dad thinks it's just easier this way.
Start by taking off the head and placing it at the front of the plate. Remove the wings, drumsticks, and thighs from the body of the chicken.
Break the chicken into two (length-wise). Remove as much meat and skin from the back of the chicken as you can. Make sure to try to keep the skin intact.
Do the same for the meat and skin on the drum stick and thighs.
You can save the bones to make a flavorful broth for another dish if you'd like.
Pour some of the sauce onto the shredded chicken and mix until the meat is evenly coated. Please note that the sauce is very salty. It's best to start with a small amount and add more later to taste.
Place all parts of the chicken on the plate in the shape of the chicken. In Chinese culture, a whole chicken symbolizes prosperity and perfection, which in Cantonese is "Jyun Mei" so it's important to plate the dish to show completeness and the shape of the chicken.
Serve plated chicken with the remaining sauce
Pairs well with
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We started Made With Lau to celebrate Cantonese culture and honor the legacy of our wonderful parents, Jenny and Chung Sun Lau.
Our hope is that these recipes and stories help you spread the joy, love, and nostalgia that I felt growing up.
