Jiaohua Chicken, also known as Changshu Jiaohua Chicken and Braised Chicken, is a traditional dish in Changshu City, Jiangsu Province. His method is to brush the processed chicken with juice, then wrap it in layers of lotus leaves, pig net oil and yellow mud, and finally throw it into the firewood pile for cooking.

The production method of beggar chicken is similar to that of "cannon dolphin", one of the "eight treasures" in Zhou Dynasty. "cannon dolphin" is a dish made by first wrapping suckling pigs with clay, grilling them and then further processing them. Its color is bright Bordeaux, fragrant, crisp and tender, crisp and tender at the entrance and unique in flavor.

The practice of modern beggar chicken is to choose big and tender Sanhuang chicken, fill it with more than a dozen fresh ingredients, and bake it with mud wrapped in pig net oil and fresh lotus leaves, which is more delicious and fragrant. Now there is also dough instead of soil, which is called "rich chicken".

origin

The cooking method of cannon dolphin and cannon roe in the Eight Treasures of Zhou Dynasty is the same, which should be a wide-area cooking method.

According to legend, in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, a beggar accidentally got a chicken at the foot of Yushan Mountain in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, but he didn't have cooking utensils and seasonings, and he couldn't even find boiling water. On a whim, the beggar put the chicken with broken belly hair and mud into the firewood pile to simmer and roast. When the soil is dry and hard, it will be broken, and the chicken feathers will fall off with the mud, and the chicken will be fragrant. Later, this practice was imitated by others and became a famous scenic spot in Changshu, and it was named Jiaohua Chicken because of its founder.

In the early 1950s, a famous chef in Changshu who was a beggar chicken was transferred to Hangzhou Hotel to receive foreign guests, so beggar chicken was introduced to Zhejiang. In the 1972 edition of China's Famous Cookbook Zhejiang and the 1990 edition of China's Famous Cookbook Zhejiang Taste, there are "flower girl Chicken".