Shandong Roast Chicken

Poultry

Shandong Roast Chicken
Ingredients:
1 four-pound whole roasting chicken
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon Sichuan pepper, smashed
2 star anise
3 slices fresh ginger
2 Tablespoons rice wine
4 Tablespoons thin soy sauce
1 stick cinnamon, broken into two pieces
3 cups corn oil
2 scallions, each tied into a loose knot
Preparation:
1. Rinse and wipe chicken dry. Put it into a large bowl.
2. Mix salt, Sichuan pepper, star anise, ginger, rice wine, soy sauce, and cinnamon and pour this over the chicken. Cover and refrigerate. Turn the chicken every half hour for three hours. Remove from the refrigerator and lift the chicken out of the spice solution and set that liquid aside. Let the chicken sit on two or three paper towels for about ten minutes.
3. Then heat the oil and fry the chicken turning it often, for ten minutes. Drain well, then put the reserved spice solution into the cavity of the chicken along with the scallion knots and sew the chicken cavity closed. Set the chicken in a heat-proof bowl on a shelf in a steamer. Cover the steamer and steam over boiling water for one hour.
4. Remove the chicken, drain the cavity, and cut the chicken into sixteen pieces. Discarding bones of all but the wings and legs, and keep skin attached to the meat.
5. Put wings and legs on the edges of a deep platter, the chicken pieces in the center. Moisten the chicken with several tablespoons of the liquid from the bowl it was steamed in, and serve.

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