Mr. Zhang's mud oven

 The Zhang family's mud oven

My good friend Ron Rose recently had the opportunity of participating in a unique Taiwanese culinary tradition. To mark the winter rice harvest, some farmers continue the ancient tradition of constructing a mud oven in their recently harvested fields. The oven in the picture was created by Mr. Zhang, the soon to be father-in-law of said Rose. This oven is used once and once only to roast a single chicken and some accompanying vegetables. The oven itself is constructed with mud clumps in a manner similar to an igloo. A fire is then burned in the oven for several hours baking the mud to a high temperature. The coals are then removed from the oven, the chicken is inserted, and the oven is collapsed on top of the bird. It is the heat of the mud itself that cooks the chicken.

The traditional method of preparing the chicken involves encasing the entire bird in clay. This dish can still be found in specialty Chinese restaurants under the name of 'beggar's chicken'. At Dalia Jurgensen's Chinese food site Red Cook , I found a colourful story explaining its origins:

A starving beggar in China during the Qing dynasty is said to have stolen a chicken and was hotly pursued by its owner. In his haste he buried the chicken in mud near a riverbank to hide it. Later that night he returned and retrieved the chicken, its feathers covered in mud. He started a fire of twigs and branches to cook the chicken. But not having any utensils he placed the entire chicken directly into the fire. A tight clay crust formed as the fowl cooked, and when the crust was cracked open the feathers came right off the chicken exposing juicy tender meat and emitting an incredible aroma. The roasted chicken was so delicious he decided to start selling his creation to the villagers. Unbeknownst to him he had just invented one of the greatest culinary traditions of China.

Picture yourself living thousands of years ago in China, existing on little more than millet. Can you imagine the joy of pulling that blackened mass of clay out of the mud and ashes after hours of preparation and anticipation? Do you envision yourself cracking it open to release the most heavenly of aromas? Is your mouth watering as you taste the tenderest and most flavourful chicken imaginable with every drop of the bird's juices preserved inside? While the veracity of the above story of the beggar may be questionable, isn't it possible that this dish spawned or is at least representative of a more pervasive myth in the Chinese culture. That of the phoenix: a golden bird rising from the ashes.

Note the similarities:

There is some dispute over the geographical origin of beggar's chicken. The first time I came across a description of foul baked in clay was in an article in the FT by Fuschia Dunlop in a restaurant in the central Sichuan region that specialized in the peasant foods of the Western Xinjiang region. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo, in her book 'The Chinese Kitchen', cites this dish as being of Beijing origins. I also came across references on the net that cited it as a dish of the Hangzhou region. It seems likely that this method of cooking foul could go back to the stone age. Perhaps even predating the use of ceramic pots. Perhaps this cooking method led to the tradition of 'clay pot' cuisine in China, which utilizes unglazed ceramic. The pot is first soaked in water in order to steam the contents while cooking. The same effect obviously applies when using wet clay.

 Clay pot chicken found at: my dinner table 

Versions of this recipe include first wrapping the chicken in lotus leaves before wrapping it in the clay. Others substitute the clay for a kind of salty bread dough.

Above images from: Red Cook

 

Baked chicken encased in bread dough

The Zhang family has their own traditional method of wrapping the chicken. They first wrap the bird in newspaper before encasing it in mud. This year though, there were some alterations to the traditional recipe. It seems that Mrs. Zhang decided that the newspaper and mud method was unsanitary so insisted on a foil baking bag instead, she also (for some unknown reason) made the decision to pre-boil the chicken. Mr. Zhang was none too pleased with these changes but acquiesced in stoic silence. Perhaps he had to acknowledge that in the end, the preparation of food was his wife's domain.

Images: Construction; Inserting the bird; three generations of the Zhang clan

Free Range Chicken: A Tough Choice

Last week I happened to eat chicken on two occasions. On the first, Tea Andy and I purchased some 'free-range' chicken at the local grocery store. On the second, I ordered up some deep fried chicken chunks from a street stall. While I admit to enjoying both versions, they were so distinct in flavour and texture that it was hard to imagine them coming from the same species of animal. While I am always suspect of labels such as 'free-range' or 'organic', it was clear from the stringy and flavourful texture of the first meat, that the animal had exercised and had most likely eaten a mixed diet comprised of local insects and herbs in addition to engineered feed product. The extreme tenderness and lack of flavour of the second meat was clearly a result of factory farming. To leave the moral issue of factory farming aside, lets consider for a moment the implications of this disparity in texture.  

Toughness or chewiness is a sure sign of wild or free-range meat. Tough meat forces one to chew more, this promotes the flow of digestive juices that break down proteins and send nutrients into the blood. Aside from this, chewing slows down the process of eating and encourages one to eat less. It is interesting that the word 'tender' is probably the most common adjective used to describe meat in advertising. Perhaps in the future, as more people become aware of the distinctive texture and health benefits of free-range meat, the word 'tough' will one day be a more effective selling point for meat.  

I found this fascinating excerpt from the Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, on the role of the McDonald's chicken McNugget in the evolution of the poultry industry. It documents how a single company was responsible for not only restructuring the American poultry industry and dramatically changing the eating habits of a large portion of the world, but also for essentially re-engineering the chicken as an animal. The following is an except from this article:

"I have an idea," Fred Turner, the chairman of McDonald's, told one of his suppliers in 1979. "I want a chicken finger-food without bones, about the size of your thumb. Can you do it?" The supplier, an executive at Keystone Foods, ordered a group of technicians to get to work in the lab, where they were soon joined by food scientists from McDonald's. Poultry consumption in the United States was growing, a trend with alarming implications for a fast food chain that only sold hamburgers. The nation's chicken meat had traditionally been provided by hens that were too old to lay eggs; after World War II a new poultry industry based in Delaware and Virginia lowered the cost of raising chicken, while medical research touted the health benefits of eating it. Fred Turner wanted McDonald's to sell a chicken dish that wouldn't clash with the chain's sensibility. After six months of intensive research, the Keystone lab developed new technology for the manufacture of McNuggets — small pieces of reconstituted chicken, composed mainly of white meat, that were held together by stabilizers, breaded, fried, frozen, then reheated. The initial test-marketing of McNuggets was so successful that McDonald's enlisted another company, Tyson Foods, to guarantee an adequate supply. Based in Arkansas, Tyson was one of the nation's leading chicken processors, and it soon developed a new breed of chicken to facilitate the production of McNuggets. Dubbed "Mr. McDonald," the new breed had unusually large breasts. 

Chicken McNuggets were introduced nationwide in 1983. Within one month of their launch, the McDonald's Corporation had become the second-largest purchaser of chicken in the United States, surpassed only by KFC. McNuggets tasted good, they were easy to chew, and they appeared to be healthier than other items on the menu at McDonald's. After all, they were made out of chicken. But their health benefits were illusory. A chemical analysis of McNuggets by a researcher at Harvard Medical School found that their "fatty acid profile" more closely resembled beef than poultry. They were cooked in beef tallow, like McDonald's fries. The chain soon switched to vegetable oil, adding "beef extract" to McNuggets during the manufacturing process in order to retain their familiar taste. Chicken McNuggets, which became wildly popular among young children, still derive much of their flavor from beef additives — and contain twice as much fat per ounce as a hamburger.
 
The McNuggets helped change not only the American diet but also its system for raising and processing poultry. "The impact of McNuggets was so huge that it changed the industry," the president of ConAgra Poultry, the nation's third-largest chicken processor, later acknowledged. Twenty years ago, most chicken was sold whole; today about 90 percent of the chicken sold in the United States has been cut into pieces, cutlets, or nuggets. In 1992 American consumption of chicken for the first time surpassed the consumption of beef. Gaining the McNuggets contract helped turn Tyson Foods into the world's largest chicken processor. Tyson now manufactures about half of the nation's McNuggets and sells chicken to ninety of the one hundred largest restaurant chains. It is a vertically integrated company that breeds, slaughters, and processes chicken. It does not, however, raise the birds. It leaves the capital expenditures and the financial risks of that task to thousands of "independent contractors."

Free range chicken is available in most supermarkets in Taiwan. Look for the cuts that are roughly twice as expensive. Or go down to your local market and pick up one of those bad boys in the picture. If you've never seen your meat killed in front of you, think of it as an educational adventure in a more humane and healthier way to eat.

Food Stuffed with Stuffed Food

       Source: http://z.about.com/d/homecooking

Kinger's post about chicken stuffed with pork filled buns sent me into a deep meditation on the subject of stuffed foods. From the humble shui jiao to the noble poulet cordon bleu, we are all drawn to the idea of eating food that is stuffed with other food. Why is it that the very mention of stuffed food gets the salivary glands flowing?  Is it the combination of flavour sensations that stuffed foods produce--the sealing in of juices, the explosion of flavour? Or is it more a matter of the luxury of consuming a dish that takes an inordinate amount of time to prepare--Mama loves her little bambino! she spent all day making ravioli just for him!! Perhaps though, the true explanation for our love of stuffed foods can be found in the deeper and murkier realm of Jungian psychology. Is it not possible that our enjoyment of a won ton or a pirogi subconsciously brings us back to the warmth and safety of our mother's womb? Or conversely, does meat inserted into a supple envelope not somehow recall the primal and life-giving act of coitus?

Whatever the reason, our purpose here at the Donkey is not to confound you with the intractable mysteries of life, but rather to lull you into a mindless stupor with descriptions of mouth-watering delights. So to consider the love we all share for stuffed foods, surely we can multiply that love by stuffing food with food that is itself stuffed with other food. Can you wrap your mind around a concept as profound as this? Of course we need not stop at two stages of stuffing. We can keep stuffing the stuffing to the power of ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, until we reach the subatomic level of inserting some mash of quarks into a light crust of electrons. For as with the iconic Ukrainian wooden doll--that contains another doll, that contains another doll, ad infinitum--what we are approaching is a model of eternity. You may recall the madman in the classic Dracula, who captures flies to feed to a spider, which he in turn feeds to a bird, which he then wishes to feed to a cat. Was he really so mad?... Now we are beginning to think on the same level.

And this is where I find foul with Kinger's chicken recipe. Why cut up the pork buns? Does this not defeat the purpose? Shouldn't the buns be inserted whole into the ass of the chicken? In response to this perceived error, I have compiled several recipes that focus on the glorious act of stuffing food with unmolested items of stuffed food.


The first recipe is a traditional English Christmas roast of foul. It involves stuffing a chicken into a duck, which is then stuffed into a turkey. This dish is refered to by some as ballotine and by others as turducken. In truth, I find neither name fitting, as the word ballotine refers to a stuffed and rolled piece of meat, while the word turducken leaves nothing to the imagination.

Here's the recipe from Peggy's Home Cooking Blog ... Thanks Peggy!

 

Turducken

Prep Time: 1:

Cook Time: 4:

Ingredients:

• 2-3/4 cups prepared savory bread stuffing, at room temperature, divided use
• 2 cups prepared cornbread stuffing, at room temperature, divided use
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 (10 to 12-pound) turkey, deboned
• 1 (4 to 5-pound) duck, deboned
• 1 (3 to 4 pound) chicken, deboned
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 3 cloves garlic, cut in quarters
• 6 fresh sage leaves
• 2 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
• 1 Tablespoon browning sauce (such as Gravy Master® or Kitchen Bouquet®)
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

Have the turkey, duck, and chicken already deboned (save the bones for stock) before you begin to assemble the turducken. Keep all of the poultry refrigerated until you are ready to use it. Do not assemble turducken until you are ready to bake it in order to avoid foodborne illness from contaminated stuffing.

Measure out 2-1/4 cups of bread stuffing and set aside. Place remaining 1/2 cup of bread stuffing in another bowl and add 1/2 cup of the cornbread stuffing along with the whole berry cranberry sauce and pecans. Toss gently to combine. Place remaining 1-1/2 cups cornbread stuffing aside. You should have 3 separate stuffings.

In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine butter, garlic, sage, and thyme until herbs are finely chopped.

Run your hand under the skin to separate and make a pocket, but do not separate skin completely from the meat. Distribute the butter herb mixture evenly under the skin.

Rub the skin of the turkey with the browning sauce (promotes even browning but doesn't add flavor), then the olive oil. Sprinkle generously with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Flip the turkey over so it is open and skin-side down. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Spread bread stuffing evenly over turkey cavity. Place duck on top of bread stuffing, skin-side down.

Spread cranberry nut stuffing on top of open duck cavity. Top with chicken, skin-side down.

Spread cornbread stuffing on top of open chicken cavity. Skewer the back of the chicken closed. Bring up the sides of the duck to cover the chicken. Skewer the back of the duck closed. Repeat process with the turkey. Carefully turn the turducken over, so it is seam-side down and breast-side up. Remove all skewers except the last one holding the turkey together.

Place turducken in a heavy roaster. Roast 3 to 4 hours, until meat thermometer inserted in the very center of the chicken stuffing reaches 165 F. Baste once per hour with pan juices. If turducken begins to get too brown, tent loosely with heavy-duty aluminum foil that has been coated with vegetable spray.

Let turducken rest 30 minutes before carving. To serve, slice turducken across the breast to show off each layer.

Yield: 12 to 14 servings



Yes, let the turducken rest, its been through a rough time.

I know, I hear you out there saying 'this is good and all, but turkey, chicken and duck are so...pedestrian. Don't you have anything a little more exotic to offer?' Fear not, dear reader. The best is yet to come.

The following recipe is from Anonimo Toscano's, Libro della Cocina, written sometime between the late 14th century to the early 15th century. It's been reprinted from Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site.

Stuffed Peacock.
Skin the peacock, keeping the head with its feathers: then take pork meat that's not too fatty, and also the ground meat of said peacock or another one, and mince and grind them together. Also grind spices, cinnamon and nutmeg, whatever you want; once these have been well ground and beaten with egg whites, mix them together, and beat said spices and meat together thoroughly, and keep the yolk on its own. Then stuff said peacock with said minced and ground meat and the aforementioned spices: and wrap said peacock in pork caul fat, and close it with a wooden pick: and thus put it in a cauldron in lukewarm water, and boil it gently. And when it has been boiled solid [i.e., the mincemeat stuffing is fully cooked], roast it on a spit or on the grill, and color it with beaten egg yolks, which you have kept aside; and don't take all of them, but make apples out of the rest of them, as follows, that is: take raw pork loin and mince it very finely with a knife and chop it thoroughly; then mix said meat with said reserved egg yolks and aforementioned spices, and make it so thick that you can make little apples in the palms of your hands; and roll then in egg yolks and color them and set them to boil in water. Once they have boiled a little you can roast them and color them slightly with egg yolks, using feathers. Some of these apples you can put inside the peacock, and on the outside, under said caul fat. And once this is done, re-clothe the peacock in its coat, skin and feathers reserved, and carry it to the table; and, with the coat taken off, serve it.


I know...now you're saying that the peacock is not stuffed with any other stuffed item, but rather with run-of-the-mill meatballs, what fraud is this? I agree dear reader. I am on your side. That is why I suggest substituting the original ingredient of meatballs with the pre-stuffed ingredient of beef ravioli. A fine variety of this food-stuff can be procured from Chef Boyardee or from your local Italian grocer.

Next we have a recipe from International Cuisine presented by the California Home Economics Teachers, 1983.

Stuffed Camel

1 whole camel, medium size
1 whole lamb, large size
20 whole chickens, medium size
60 eggs
12 kilos rice
2 kilos pine nuts
2 kilos almonds
1 kilo pistachio nuts
110 gallons water
5 pounds black pepper
Salt to taste

Skin, trim and clean camel, lamb and chicken. Boil until tender. Cook rice until fluffy. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. Hard boil eggs and peel. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. Add more rice. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. Serves friendly crowd of 80-100.

Shararazod Eboli, Home Economist, Dammam, Saudi Arabia


Now we're getting somewhere. But how about this. Let's shove the camel up the ass of an elephant. Then let's sew the elephant into the belly of a whale. We'll lower the whole things into an active volcano to make sure it's extra crispy. Then, in a great act of magnanimous charity, we'll tow our creation across the ocean to feed some third-world country. Together, hand in hand, let's get our stuffing on!  

Meat and Memory Part 1: Laoatian Barbecued Chicken Breast

In 2004 I took a week-long vacation to Laos. I had chosen Laos based on friends telling me it was relatively non-touristic and the people were perhaps the friendliest in the world. I flew into Thailand and crossed the border by bus. After spending a night in the capital, Vien Tien, I proceeded to take a long and perilous bus ride to Luang Prabang. Soon into the journey I was hooked.  The bus wound at high speed through an endless series of rolling mountains. The green hill-sides were punctuated by patches of bright yellow and pink flowers cascading down the gulleys. On the 10 hour trip, I remember almost no evidence of industry or development. Human habitation seemed limited to clusters of shacks located at intervals along the road.

Luang Prabang is a city that has largely retained its traditional architectural character. It is known for its numerous ancient temples, all constructed with the characteristic sloping Laoatian roofs. A huge proportion of the population are monks. Chanting is heard everywhere and the monks are eager to strike up conversations and practice their English. In Laos, the philosophy of Buddhism is not relegated to the temples, it can be felt in the everyday interactions of the people. The locals disarmed me with their smiles and seemed to move through their lives with a relaxed contentedness. These were truly the friendliest and most gentle people I have ever met.

Two experiences poignantly illustrate this point. The first was riding in a bicycle rickshaw driven by a very old man. When I got in, we agreed on a price and he took me to my destination. After I paid him, the change he returned to me was short by a small amount. I pointed this out and asked for the rest. He just looked up at me and gave me a shy smile and then looked down at the crumpled bills in his hand. I couldn't do anything but smile back and walk away. This is compared to a similar experience I had in Thailand, where I stubbornly demanded my money and ended up having a knife pulled on me. The second incident happened while walking down a small alley after dark. The street was empty except for a group a young men hanging out, talking and laughing. Experience had taught me, that as a foreigner in a third world country, this was not a comfortable situation to be in. At the very least I expected some cold stares as I walked by, but to my surprised they all smiled, waved and said hello. It is these kinds of seemingly insignificant interactions that end up defining a culture in one's mind. 

As I slowly adjusted to the atmosphere, I felt myself smiling more and I was able to replace some of my cynicism and sharpness with a deeper feeling of calm. I spent my days wandering aimlessly through the city and sitting by the Mekong river drinking coffee and reading. I could spend hour after hour gazing at the patchwork of vegetable plots of the far side of the river and watching the long wooden boats slowly pass by.

Laos is one of the few places left in the world where large-scale industrialized farming practices have yet to take over. Every restaurant and cafe seemed to have chickens walking around loose, pecking away at the ground. Truly free-range chickens like these are very difficult to find in most of the world now. These chickens are free of drugs, they are allowed to follow their instinctual behavior patterns, and their diet is comprised of the native plants and insects found in the area. Compare this to the chicken most of the world now eats--raised in boxes, pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics, and engineered to grow massive breasts and mature in a number of weeks. One can hardly look upon them as belonging to the same species.

As it so happened, when I arrived in Laos, I had been a vegetarian for two years. But seeing these plump chickens pecking around me, I couldn't help imagining them roasted with herbs, deep fried in batter, and barbecued with a tangy sauce. Walking through the night market one evening I came upon a stall broiling chicken breasts over charcoal. The breasts were butterflied and inserted into split bamboo sticks that were tied at one end. This allowed customers to eat as they walked without the aid of printed bags or boxes destined to end up as street trash. I watched the cook repeatedly paint the breasts with some sort of dark, oily sauce. I took the plunge and ordered one up. The taste of this chicken was pure revelation.  I had never eaten poultry of this quality.  The texture was dense and chewy, and the flavour rich and deep. The sauce was a type of light salty oyster, mixed with the juices of the cooked birds. I was in ecstasy as I slowly chewed each bite, savouring the experience.  Describing the flavour of this meat is like trying to describe the colour red to a blind person, words inevitably fail to do it justice.

Of course part of the joy I felt when eating this chicken had to do with being deprived of meat for two years. As we all know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. But I still feel that somehow the kindness, honesty, and humanity of the Laoation people had somehow found its way into the taste of that chicken. Or perhaps in the five years I've been away from Laos, I've combined in my mind my impressions of the culture with the taste of that meat. Regardless, all things are connected, and what really matters is that I have this beautiful memory to look back on.