Begger's Chicken - why is it called a Begger chicken? According to the China legend, there was a begger who was desperate for food but do not have the stove to prepare the chicken. So what he did was...covered up the chicken with mud & burned it in fire. There are a few stories behind the begger's chicken but this make the most sense the me. In today China in big cities like Beijing, they called the "Begger's Chicken" = "Emperor Chicken" = "Rich & Noble Chicken". It carried the opposite meaning of "Begger's Chicken". We can understand that a high class 5 stars restaurant can't have a "Begger's Chicken" on their menu.
We bought this Begger's chicken in one of our local tour, this is a more humble version. You can't really make the authentic Begger's chicken at home because it is really messy. These are baked in a traditional oven. However, there are simple Chinese herbal rubs that you can buy from the store for steam/bake from the Asia Store.
Refer to the above pic, we used a kitchen hammer to break the baked mud. Then, we use a jam spreader to open up the cracked mud. Be creative, use whatever tools we got in the kitchen.
Continue to work hard for a delicious chicken....
Finally, we removed all the pieces. Then, you will see there is a wax paper protecting the chicken from the mud.
Tear off the wax paper........
Carefully removed all the wax paper, then you will see the final aluminum foil wrapping "protecting" the chicken .....
Ta-da ...finally we can serve the chicken. Hungry....
The Begger's chicken was stuffed with lots of Chinese Herbs. The flavour is more intense & the meat is juicy. The cooking method using mud & traditional wood fire oven make it so special. It is just similar to the method making salt baked chicken, the cooking process itself is the main contribution factor for the delicious meal.
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