CNY Chef: Clay Pot Spring Chicken Cassolet of Hyatt Recency Beijing Wangjing's Chef Markus Zuck
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This recipe comes to us from Chef Markus Zuck, Culinary Experience Curator at the Hyatt Regency Beijing Wangjing. He tells us the inspiration behind it in his own words:
"My mom used to cook chicken in a German Romertopf (a clay roasting apparatus) during my childhood, which created a super juicy and yummy dish.
Over the years working in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Beijing I’d always be drawn back to the memories of my childhood, which inspired me to create this clay pot chicken dish for our 牛Grill @ Market Café.
I decided on an East meets West combination, utilizing Chinese flavors including dried scallops, dried shrimps, root vegetables, mushrooms, fresh herbs and spices.
Germans love their bread, so it was a must to cover the pot with the bread dough. The bonus is it can be torn up later and dipped in the resulting sauce or eaten with the chicken."
Clay Pot Spring Chicken Cassolet
Chicken and marinade ingredients
750g free range spring chicken
20g sea salt
20g crushed white pepper
30g chopped garlic
12g thyme fresh
2 pieces star anise
1/2 a cinnamon stick
50ml beetroot juice, fresh
50ml red wine
Preparing the chicken
1. Debone the chicken except for the two small bones in the wing and the leg, place it in a tray or dish large enough to hold the entire chicken.
2. Heat up the beetroot juice and red wine, then add in all other ingredients and let it cool down.
3.Pour the brine into the dish with the deboned chicken. Cover and let it marinade in the refrigerator for a minimum 12 hours.
Dough Ingredients
150g bread flour
157g warm water
3g dry yeast
2g salt
Preparing the dough
1. Add the yeast to the water and let stand for 10 minutes, then add in the other ingredients.
2. Mix all the ingredients in the dough mixer. (Low speed for three minutes and high speed for six minutes). Or mix by hand until the dough takes on a texture that's not quite sticky but not quite dry.
3. Let the dough rest for one hour in a closed container.
4. After knead the dough again and let it rest for another 30 minutes.
Clay Pot Ingredients
1 deboned & marinaded free range spring chicken
Prepared clay pot dough
10g Yunnan ham
15g porcini mushroom, cut into quarters
15g shiitake mushroom, cut into quarters
15g morel mushroom, cut in half
15g green beans, diced into small cubes
15g carrot, diced into small sticks
20g olive oil
15g Butter
25g shallots, sliced
5g garlic, sliced
30g red wine
100g demi-glace or chicken gravy
5g dried scallops (conpoy) soaked in water
5g dried shrimps
10g Oyster sauce
1/2 a fresh lemon, juiced
Method
1. Add the dried scallops to 60g of hot water and let them soak for one hour. You can save some of this soaking water and add it to the sauce later, but it must be reduced to less than 15 percent beforehand.
2. Heat up non-stick frying pan, add some olive oil and pan-fry the chicken on both sides until golden brown in color.
3. Remove the chicken from the pan, add some olive oil, and heat up the pan again.
4. Add the shallots and garlic to the pan and sautée. Add the mushroom, carrot, beans and ham.
5. Deglaze with the red wine. Add in the dry scallops, dry shrimps, lemon juice, oyster sauce and the butter.
6. Mix the potato starch in cold water and thicken the sauce until it can coat the back of a spoon.
7. Put the stewed vegetables, spring chicken and sauce in a clay pot, place the dough on top and seal around the edges.
8. Bake the clay pot in the oven at 250 degrees Celsius for 15 -20 minutes until dough has nice golden brown color.
READ: CNY Chef: Miso Braised Fatty Pork with Soy Beans from Daisuke Onishi of Toratori-ya
Images courtesy of Hyatt Regency Beijing Wangjing
