Salt Baked Chicken

A signature Hakka dish, the salt baked chicken is a salty, savoury, lightly spiced chicken that is tender, moist, and pairs addictively well with rice. After spending a night in the fridge to become firm, the chicken is wrapped in baking paper, encased in a thick shell of coarse salt, and left to soak in its juices. Perfect to have it with rice and soup at your Chinese New Year dinner.

Halal

Difficulty: Hard

Preparation: 1440 min
Cook: 80 min
Clean up: 15 min

Steps: 3 steps
7 Ingredients

Difficulty: Hard
Steps: 3 steps
7 Ingredients

Preparation: 1440 min
Cook: 80 min
Clean up: 15 min

Instructions

Marinate chicken
- To prep the chicken, rinse chicken and wipe it down dry and ensure that all the cavities and skin is extremely dry.
- In a bowl, mix together, Chinese five spice, sugar, salt, and pepper. Sprinkle the mixture all over the surface and internal cavity of the chicken and place the chicken in the fridge on a rack to dry the skin completely from moisture overnight.

Prep chicken
- Take the chicken out of the fridge at least 1 hour before cooking to bring it down to room temperature.
- Once the chicken has been brought to room temperature, stuff the cavities of the chicken with ginger and warp the chicken in baking paper. Wrap it around twice.

Prepare salt
- In a dry wok, add in all the salt and heat the salt on a medium heat for about 30 minutes until the salt is piping hot.
- Once the salt is hot, make a hole in the middle of the salt and place the chicken parcel in the centreand cover the salt over the parcel and reduce the fire to slow and cook for about 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, turn off the fire and continue to cook the chicken for another 40 minutes in the hot salt.

Plate and Serve!

After 40 minutes, scrap off as much of the salt as you can, then slowly (using oven cloves) pick the chicken out of the salt (be careful the salt is still veryhot) and remove the baking paper . Open up the baking paper, let the chicken rest before serving