白切鸡白切雞
bái qiē jī baak6 cit3 gai1
Cantonese cooking honours the ingredient above all — and nothing proves it like a chicken poached whole, served plain with ginger-scallion oil. If the bird is good, it needs nothing else; that restraint IS the cuisine.
The story behind it
Cantonese cooks judge a kitchen by its white-cut chicken: nothing masks the quality of the bird, the timing of the poach, or the silkiness of the skin. It anchors family banquets and ancestral offerings alike, always with ginger-scallion sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 small whole chicken (about 1.2 kg)
- Big knob of ginger + 4 spring onions
- Iced water bath
- Dip: minced ginger, spring onion, salt, hot oil poured over
Steps
- Submerge the chicken in barely-simmering water with ginger and onion.
- Poach gently ~30 minutes; never let it boil.
- Plunge into iced water — this sets the silky skin.
- Chop through the bone and serve at room temperature with the dip.