Shenzhen Chicken Pot (深圳'胡须佬'鸡煲)
A Cantonese-Sichuan fusion from China's (one time) manufacturing capital.
So… for the unaware, maybe let's just get the whole Shenzhen story out of the way at first.
In the late 70s, in the initial stages of Deng Xiaoping's famed post-Mao reforms, as a test run of sorts Beijing circled four cities on the map – Shenzhen, Xiamen, Shantou, and Zhuhai – to give this whole capitalism thing a quick whirl. Y'know, just… see how wet this water really is. And while all of those four cities succeeded to one degree or the other, it was Shenzhen – owing to its advantageous location a quick slip away from Hong Kong, that really exploded.
What happened, of course, is pretty well known. Hong Kong manufacturers - and to a lesser extent Taiwanese - rife with their institutional knowhow and international connections from the Asian Tiger period flooded the city. They were drawn by a flexible bureaucratic environment, and a relatively educated labor force that was – importantly – absolutely dirt cheap. And on the other side of the coin, drawn by those opportunities, migrants from all across the country from Sichuan to Hunan to Chaozhou to Hubei to the Northeast moved down to Shenzhen in droves – either permanently or for at least a quick spell.
For a while there in the 90s and 00s? If you saw a product that was "made in China", odds would've been pretty decent that it was made in Shenzhen.
Hong Kong Influence on the city
On the cultural side, however, as tends to happen worldwide with bordertowns, Shenzhen ended up being a place where – for better or worse – Hong Kongers could skip over to and cash in some of that unrealized economic privilege.
Shopping. Restaurants. Massages. …you name it.
Shenzhen became a sort of weekend destination where Hong Kongers – men, in particular – could eat, drink, and play happy… all under the hue of red lights and green bottles. And crucially, for our story today, at least a tangible number of Hong Kong dudes would even leave second wives, and in some cases entire second families, over on the Shenzhen side of the border. That was the size of the economic gulf between those checkpoints.
Of course, that was then and the world does march forward.
Food in Shenzhen, these days
Shenzhen, over time, ended up getting increasingly developed, and increasingly expensive, so both manufacturing and… massages… ended up moving north to neighboring Dongguan, leaving Shenzhen as a bit more normal of a big city with a bit more normal of a mix of Tech Trade and Finance. But unique still to Shenzhen in China is that you did end up having this mix living there hailing from all across the country.
So then, getting back to food – pop quiz – what happens when you when you mix people from Sichuan, Hunan, Chaozhou, Hubei, and the Northeast all in one city all against a Cantonese backdrop? What does that do to a cuisine?
And maybe the unfortunate answer is… not really all that much.
You see, doesn't matter where you are in the world, when people migrate, they tend to stew instead of pot. So at best in Shenzhen you can get some authentic tasty fare from all across the country… and of course at worst, some bland, gimmicky corporate chains (this is a boom town, after all).
Cuisines are like languages, or accents – they take generations to crystallize, and you're not probably not gunna find too many interesting changes over the space of forty years.
That said, you can sometimes, I think, still see the potential beginnings of a cuisine sprouting up here or there, however faintly, and that's where our dish today, chicken pot, comes in.
Shenzhen Chicken Pot
Because Chicken pot or gai bo, is this Cantonese classic – you can really find it all across the Pearl River Delta. There's a number of variations on the theme, but generally it's a whole chicken cleaved across the bone, cooked together in a claypot along with aromatics and sauce. It's a Dai Pai Dong mainstay, a great late night snack to have alongside a bottle of strong rice wine, but also a reasonably common sight for dinners in home kitchens as well.
So against that backdrop, enter the Shenzhen version.
The story goes that there was a Hong Kong man that often went to Shenzhen for business, and - as was common at the time - found a second wife to keep him company. And also common enough - given the demographic breakdown - this apocryphal second wife apparently hailed from Sichuan. The Hong Kong man would often go out to eat chicken pot, his favorite dish, and his mistress resolved to cook it for him at home. But in the process, she added chilis, chili bean paste, and a few Sichuan spices to the pot and with that this whole Shenzhen chicken pot was born.
And while probably apocryphal, what is established is that the first Shenzhen chicken pot restaurants were born out of the urban village of Xiangxi Cun right near the Luohu border checkpoint with Hong Kong, and they are this interesting little twist.
That said, my personal favorite Shenzhen chicken pot restaurant is a hot jump away in the Futian district, run by a famously mustachioed man churning out pseudo-industrial quantities of delicious chicken pot. The best part, I think, is that halfway through the meal you end up adding in some water and turning it all into a hotpot, so that's going to be the chicken pot that we'll be mimicking today.
Shenzhen Chicken Pot
Chicken or chicken wings, 1kg.
Marinade for the chicken:
Salt, ½ tsp.
White pepper powder (白胡椒粉), ½ tsp.
Soy sauce (生抽), 1 tbsp.
Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp.
Cornstarch (生粉), 1 tbsp.
Oil to coat, ~1 tbsp.
Sauce:
Soy sauce (生抽), 1.5 tbsp.
Liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine (料酒/绍酒), 1 tbsp.
Natural Peanut Butter (花生酱), 0.5 tbsp.
Chili Bean Paste (郫县豆瓣酱), 0.5 tbsp.
Furu a.k.a. fermented bean curd (腐乳), 1 cube.
White pepper powder (白胡椒粉), ½ tsp.
Five spice powder (五香粉), ¼ tsp.
Sichuan peppercorn powder (花椒粉), ¼ tsp.
Chicken bouillon powder (鸡粉), ¼ tsp.
MSG (味精), ⅛ tsp.
Salt, ⅛ tsp.
Hoisin sauce (海鲜酱), 1 tbsp.
Chu Hou paste (柱侯酱) -or- additional Hoisin, 0.5 tbsp. Just use more hoisin if you can’t find Chu Hou paste (or don’t have any around).
Water, 6 tbsp.
Onion, ½. Cut into slices. Half will be used to fry at first, half later to finish the pot.
Shallots (干葱), 2. Quartered.
Garlic, ~4 cloves. Smashed.
Ginger, ~1 inch. Smashed.
Hot dried chilis, e.g. Heaven Facing or Thai Bird’s Eye (朝天椒) - ~6.
Oil, to fry, ~4 tbsp.
Cilantro, 3 sprigs.
Process:
To prep the chicken:
We used one whole chicken cleaved across the bone into 1 inch pieces. You can also used 1kg of chicken wings instead if you like.
Marinate your chicken pieces with a half teaspoon salt, a half teaspoon white pepper powder, and one tablespoon each cornstach, soy sauce, and liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine. Give that a real good mix, coat it all with about a tablespoon of oil… and let that marinate for about a half an hour (or one hour if you're using wings).
Then, pre-fry the chicken. If you are comfortable passing through oil (i.e. deepfrying), do that. We will be pan-frying to make it a bit more home-cooking friendly.
In a wide non-stick pan over a high flame, fry the chicken pieces. To help everything cook evenly, what you want to do is dip each side of your pan into the flame, about 20 seconds each side for two minutes in all. Then flip, and do the same move on the other side, also for two minutes. Set aside.
To prep:
Prepare the sauce: to a bowl mix together a tablespoon and a half of soy sauce, a tablespoon of liaojiu a.k.a. Shaoxing wine, a half tablespoon of natural peanut butter, another half tablespoon of Sichuan chili bean paste, one cube furu – fermented tofu, a half teaspoon white pepper powder, a quarter teaspoon each five spice powder, chicken bouillon powder, and Sichuan peppercorn powder, an eighth teaspoon MSG, an eighth teaspoon salt, one tablespoon of Hoisin sauce, a half tablespoon of Chu Hou paste, and six tablespoons of water. Mix well.
Cut a half an onion into slices. Quarter two shallots. Smash four cloves of garlic and one inch of ginger. Remove the stem from six spicy dried chilis and snip in half.
To make the pot:
In a claypot or a cast iron over a medium-low flame, swirl in four tablespoons of oil – preferably peanut – and add the shallots and half of the slice onion. Fry those over a medium low flame til the onion's softened and sweet, about ten minutes, then toss in the garlic and the ginger and fry for another minute or so, until fragrant. Add the chilis and mix well.
Add in your sauce, and fry that all together for about five minutes, or until the oil begins to separate. Add in your chicken, mix, and sprinkle over another quarter of an onion together about three sprigs worth of cilantro. Move over to the table.
How to Hotpot It.
Place your pot over some sort of portable burner, then give it all a good mix and cover. Let that fry and sort of roast in there over a medium flame for about eight minutes - or ten for big wings - stirring every two minutes or so while everyone gets all hungry.
Then uncover and start to devour your delicious chicken.
Once you're basically done with the bird, definitely don't forget about the very best part – the hotpot transformation. Hit it with enough hot, boiled water to make something hotpot-y, and boil up whatever you want to boil up. Two of my favorites are thinly sliced beef and deep fried tofu skin but… really, this is a toss in whatever you want sort of affair.
That said, one thing I would recommend trying is a bit of noodles. In particular, I think finishing up with Hong Kong style egg noodles is just… aggressively delicious together with the sauce.