Drunken Chicken

A trip to Mei Long Village this weekend left us with cravings for a whole drunken chicken. I adapted a recipe from a cookbook and ended up doing the following:

Steam a whole chicken for 34 minutes to an hour. Try to find at least a free range chicken, or a "yellow fur" chicken from a Chinese market. I used a pasta pot to keep the chicken out of the liquid. The bottom layer has water, a knob's worth of sliced ginger, two scallions, and a splash of shao shing wine. The chicken has the fat trimmed off, some holes poked all over to let fat drip out, and a knob's worth of sliced ginger and two torn up scallions stuffed inside.

Allow the chicken to cool. Meanwhile, mix together:

• 1/4 cup shao shing wine
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• dash of white pepper
• 3 tablespoons of the steaming liquid (once you're done steaming the chicken)

Cut the chicken into pieces like you'd get if you got chicken at a Chinese restaurant. I tossed the pieces in the marinade, but you can arrange the chicken carefully in a container and pour the marinade over itif you want to be neat. Refrigerate for four hours, or up to a few days. Keep turning the container to coat all the pieces evenly.

Fitness update: I found some stairs and a new hilly part of the neighborhood I hadn't explored before. It was a nice change of scenery and level of difficulty. It took me five more minutes than usual to run two miles, and my muscles are screaming.