Beggar’s Chicken

Hangzhou Roast Chicken，a specialty of Hangzhou，is also called Beggar’s Chicken Would you like to know the story behind it？

One day，an emperor of the Qing Dynasty traveled together with his ministers.They had a very good time with the beauty of nature，and somehow the emperor smelled something delicious.So he ordered his men to find where the smell came from，and they found a beggar eating a chicken by the roadside.These men’s mouths all watered.They asked the beggar how he had cooked the chicken.”It’s very simple，”the beggar answered.”The thing you have to do is to make it clean and cover it with a kind of mud and then roast it.”

The men told this to the emperor.He had chicken done in the beggar’s way and it was the best chicken the emperor had ever had.

Is the dish still cooked in the same way？Yes and no.Yes，because the chicken is still covered with clay.No，because there is cellophane and lotus leaves in between the chicken and clay.And the chicken is filled with meat slices and covered with lard.

A chicken roasted in this way tastes very good and has a golden color.It often takes four hours to cook it.

qingquang

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