Chinese chestnut chicken

As you may have heard, eating in China is considered an essential part of Chinese Culture, and it's very much the case in Wuxi as well.


Today we'll introduce you to one of Wuxi's famous dishes. It is a chicken dish called huangmen lizi ji. It's said that it was made for the royal family in the Qing dynasty.


Huangmen lizi ji is considered a winter dish. The 'lizi' in the name is Chinese for chestnuts. Given it's a winter dish, the chestnut is used because it's believed to be good for the muscles and joints. It is also considered good for pregnant woman because of its fat content. And here we show how to make it.


You need chicken, 500 milligrams of chicken soup, some chicken broth, chestnuts which is called lizi in Chinese, some sauce, sugar, wine, bean oil, sesame-seed oil, shredded ginger, garlic, starched water, processed sesame, and finally salt.


The cooking process starts with chopping the chicken into little pieces so it's convenient to stir-fry in the pan.


Then, add half a spoon of salt, cooking wine and sauce on the chicken and saute it for 5 minutes.


Then add oil into the pan and set the temperature up to 160 degrees Celsius chicken skin can be fried until it hardens and turns yellow. Then take the chicken out, turn the flame down and put some more oil in the pan. On a low flame, add a little ginger and garlic then throw the fried chicken back in with some wine, sauce, and chicken soup as well as the chestnuts. After adding some salt and sugar, cook the chicken some more and make sure the flame remains low. After 20 minutes, the chicken is done.


You then take some of the leftover soup and mix it with some farina and add to the chicken. And voila, it's ready!