Chinese White Cut Chicken (Bái Qie Ji)
Chinese white cut chicken (bái qie ji) is a classic New Year's dish and an everyday comfort item for most Chinese home cooks. It's just a poached chicken served with a scallion-ginger sauce. While it may seem plain and simple, it takes some practice to master the cooking method and produce a juicy and flavorful chicken.
Hungry Bear turned to a recipe from The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen for directions. The end result was a white cut chicken that was moist and delicious. I loved dipping the chicken into the scallion-ginger sauce and spooning the sauce over steamed rice. Who knew a poached chicken could be so good!?!
Chinese White Cut Chicken (Bái Qie Ji) Recipe
- 4-5 pound broiler-fryer chicken
- 5 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
- 1 ounce fresh ginger (thumb-sized piece for poaching)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 quarts ice water
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 3 tablespoons green scallions, finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons ginger, finely shredded
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- Remove any excess fat from the chicken. Rub chicken with 2 teaspoons of salt, then rinse under cold water and place onto a rack to drain.
- In a large stock pot, bring about 3 quarts water, ginger, garlic and 2 teaspoons salt to a boil over high heat. Slowly add the chicken, breast-side up. Add more boiling water if necessary to cover the chicken completely. Return water to a boil and boil, uncovered, for 5 minutes, removing any scum on the surface. Cover pot, turn off heat and let the chicken sit for 20 minutes.
- Uncover the pot and return to a boil for 3-4 minutes. Carefully remove from pot and place the chicken in a colander in the sink. Insert meat thermometer into thickest part of thigh. Thermometer should read 170°F. (Return to pot and simmer for a few more minutes if internal temperature is under 170°F.) Slowly pour ice water over the chicken in the colander. Transfer chicken to cutting board and rub it with sesame oil. Allow chicken to cool before chopping the chicken with a meat cleaver. Reserve chicken broth for future use.
- Place scallions, ginger and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in a small heatproof bowl. In a small skillet or saucepan, heat vegetable oil over high heat until very hot, but not smoking. Carefully, pour the oil over scallion mixture. The oil will make a crackling sound and may splatter when it hits the scallion mixture. Serve the chicken warm or room temperature with scallion-ginger sauce.
Makes 4-6 servings
[Adapted from The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen]
Update August 13, 2008: The first picture in this post won the DMBLGIT July 2008 aesthetics category! We are very psyched and honored to receive the recognition.
yum-oh! great recipe, well documented… I am drooling over the thought of this Hainan-style chicken… thanks for the reminder, perfect winter dish!
Hi, I came across your blog the other day, and I’m thoroughly impressed. The pictures are beautiful, and I’ll definitely be trying some of your recipes soon. Keep up the good work!
Very nice! I haven’t had this kind of chicken in many years. I think my next cookbook purchase will have to be the Grace Young book. That way I can learn how to replicate some of the dishes I remember eating as a child.
this reminds me of Com Ga. this looks delish but i’m now i thinking i might have to make me some mama style com ga this weekend, complete with rice, ginger chilli nuoc mam, cucumber-onions in vinegar and rau ram. i’ll be driving my pham-ily crazy with the picture taking and hopefully one will be good enough to make it to foodgawker. (GREAT JOB with that site, btw!)
A classic! And yes, how can something so simple be so good? =)
Alternatively, we steam the chicken instead of poaching it. Everybody likes spooning the chicken juices over the rice.
That green onion-ginger sauce *makes* the dish! I never knew you were supposed to heat the oil and pour it over the ingredients. I just made it up and start the oil cold and add grated ginger (to infuse it). Then salt and green onion at the end of the process.
i also add chopped chilies to my ginger scallion sauce. we’re currently testing this recipe for the book…and i decided to nix the idea of poaching a whole chicken. I think this scares the bejeebers out of most people…so we’re poaching chicken breasts instead.
This sounds like a great recipe! I once took Chinese cooking from a visiting professor from China and learned to whack through those chicken bones!
I’ve forgotten why you boil, cool, boil, cool…. I remember reading the explanation somewhere. Can you refresh my memory on that?
Looove chicken cooked this way (my favourite bit is usually the dipping sauce, and lots of it!), and love the photos :)
my father used to make this pretty often, but doesn’t anymore. you’ve made me miss it! thanks for the recipe.
lydia, i think the point behind the method is to only cook the chicken until it is just done, before it leaks any juices or flavor. just boiling it is too harsh and risks overcooking. essentially, low and slow to get a juicy bird.
Very nicely done!
The ginger-scallion sauce makes the dish, to be sure. If you use a free range bird, it won’t be as bland as a CAFO fryer. Might be a little tougher, though.
I adore this simple, homey comforting kind of dish in the same way I loved my mother’s Jewish-style chicken in the pot complete with extra chicken feet . I can’t wait to try the scallion sauce.
Great photos! Looks tasty. very very tasty.
Hey Chuck, great looking recipe. Good to have you back posting, I was concerned that foodgawker was eating up all your time.
This sounds like a simple and tasty way to cook chicken.
WAH, you know Mandarin?
Is there an easy way to print the recipe? I have to make this recipe! I also have to eat it!
Thanks.
How utterly gorgeous! I can taste it right now :) I know the traditional way to serve it is with the bone, but I always *hated* the bits of bone in the chicken… Just a curiosity (call me stupid or unobservant - it’s all accurate), is Hungry Bear Chinese or are you guys just really masterful with an innate sense of Chinese cooking? Okay, I’m going to try and be better about commenting. I’ve been derailed from my normal web noodlings lately, but hopefully the side-effects are going awaaaaaay… xxoo
Thanks everyone for the compliments!
Rasa Malaysia, me and Mandarin… um, no. That would be Hungry Bear’s native tongue. I’m sticking to my Viet-lish.
Sonja, if you select print preview in your browser, you’ll see the post content on the first page and the recipe on the second page without any pictures. Hopefully that will work for you.
Jen, thanks! Hungry Bear is a Chinese bear. I think that makes her a panda bear. ;-)
Nice blog - you take great food pictures and I like all the different recipes you offer. I’ll be visiting often!
Hi Chuck - Great recipe here. A whole chicken cooked this way is always so nice. I know the bones make it a bit cumbersome to eat with but the flavor you get from them is incomparable. Spring onions are all over the market here in Ann Arbor and this would be a great way to use them.
p.s. thanks for the b-day wishes :) Also, kudos on FoodGawker - it’s awesome!
I like the sound and look of this. I shall mark this on my to do list.
I find that simple recipes are often the hardest to get just right. The ginger dipping sauce sounds really tasty in this recipe, I think I might have to try it at home!
I made this last night– I didn’t have a proper cleaver, unfortunately, so I managed to make a mess cutting the meat from the bone with a kitchen knife. But the chicken was tender and flavorful, and the sauce was excellent. I’m going to make chicken soup from the broth tonight. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I love your website! Keep the recipes coming! One of these days, I’ll get brave enough to try one of them! :-)
Looks delicious! Ginger + scallions is one of those perfect combos, dipping chicken in it? Yum!
Hi I am new to your blog and I just wanted to say how much I’m loving it
Nice recipe! Do you totally remove the meat or just segment the bird?
My husband and I had this at Good Taste Noodle House a week ago (it was served over noodles). I loved it more than the duck and wonton I ordered. :)
Congrats on winning the Edibility award for your photo! It is fantastic!