Beggar’s Chicken is one of the most famous of all Shanghai’s chicken dishes. Legend has it that a starving beggar stole a chicken but he didn’t have a stove and had to hide it and so covered it, feathers and all, in lotus leaves and mud and baked it underground. He couldn’t hid the aroma and was discovered by a Qing-dynasty Emperor who happened to be passing by.  Attracted by the aroma of the baked chicken, he stopped and shared the beggar’s meal. He loved the chicken so much that it was added the Imperial court menu and the beggar was made a restaurateur.

Ingredients

• 1 x 2 kg fresh organic chicken, properly cleaned

Marinade

• 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice wine, the best Chinese
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 2 tsp salt

Stuffing

• 6 shitake mushrooms, fresh or dried
• 150 g lean pork
• 60 g Chinese pickled cabbage
• 2 large spring onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• 1 tsp palm sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cardamom seeds (removed from the pod and crushed)

Other

• 2 tbsp oil for stir-frying
• 2 large sheets tin foil for wrapping chicken

Method

• In a small bowl, combine the marinade ingredients and rub the marinade all over the inside and outside of the chicken and allow marinate for 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 180 C
• If using dried shitake mushrooms, reconstitute by soaking in warm water until softened and the squeeze the water out and slice it finely – if fresh, slice thinly.
• Cut the pork into thin matchstick pieces and chop the vegetables into think strips wherever possible.
• Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large wok over  medium/high heat and then add the spring onions and the pork at the same time.
• Stir-fry until the pork is crisp and almost cooked through, then add the mushrooms and preserved greens.
• Stir in the soya sauce, the rice wine, the sugar, the sesame oil and the cardamom, set aside.
• Stuff the chicken loosely and close with strong toothpicks.
• Wrap the chicken tightly in the aluminum foil, making sure that the ends are well closed. Place the wrapped chicken in a roasting pan.
• Bake the chicken for an hour without opening it, then open it and bake for another 15 minutes to brown.
• Remove the stuffing and serve it with the chopped up chicken.