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Dong chicken hot pot gets its name from the Dong village of Zhaoxing, in eastern Guizhou, China. As shared in the Beyond The Great Wall cookbook by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, it is taken for granted that every evening meal includes a soup or stew. That’s pretty much how it’s like in our family too. There was always some kind of soup or stew in our meal. My dad liked to have soup with every meal and hence my mom always make sure there was a soup to go with our meal.
Hot pot or in Mandarin known as “huo guo” is a very common dish throughout Asia. I talked about hot pot before in my previous post. Whatever goes in there is pretty much flexible. It’s up to you what you want to eat. This Dong chicken hot pot is a generous chicken stew, thick with carrots and potatoes and subtly warmed with ginger, Szechuan/Sichuan peppercorns. I love making dish like this. Everything goes in one pot. Serve with rice and you have a complete meal in no time. We had it with red chile paste (recipe below)…ohh…boy…so good!
DONG CHICKEN HOT POT
Ingredients
- 3 ½ to 4 lbs chicken legs and/or breasts
- 8 cups water
- 2 Tbsp ginger cut into small matchsticks
- 3 garlic cloves , mashed
- ¼ tsp Szechuan peppercorns , lightly crushed or coarsely ground, or more to taste
- 3 or 4 red cayenne chiles or 5 to 8 dried red chiles
- 2 Tbsp Shaoxing wine , or substitute with balsamic vinegar
- 2 Tbsp soy sauce , or to taste
- 2 tsp salt , or to taste
- 1 lb potatoes (4 medium), peeled, cut lengthwise in half, and thinly sliced
- 1 lb carrots , peeled and thinly sliced on a long diagonal
- ½ lb daikon radish , peeled, cut lengthwise in half, and thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
- 2 packed cups spinach or other tender greens , coarsely chopped
- RED CHILE PASTE (1/2 cup)
- ¼ lb fresh red cayenne chiles (about 8 to 10)
- 1 tsp salt , or to taste
- Pinch of sugar
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 Tbsp water , or more to taste
Instructions
- Wash the chicken. Leave the skin on while the chicken cooks, for it adds a lush smoothness as ell as flavor to the stew, which contains no other fat. Use a cleaver to chop the chicken into smaller pieces (cut whole legs into 3 or 4 pieces. half-breasts into 2 or 3 pieces). Rinse the pieces again and place in a wide heavy pot
- Add the water and bring to a boil. Let boil for about 5 minutes, skimming off and discarding the foam that will collect on the surface
- Add the ginger, garlic, Szechuan peppercorns, and chiles, then lower the heat to maintain a strong simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 35 minutes, turning the chicken pieces occasionally if they are not completely immersed in the water. Add the wine, soy sauce, and salt and bring back to a boil. The chicken pieces should now be cooked through, cook a little longer if they are not (if you wish, lift the skin off the chicken and discard at this point)
- Add the potatoes and carrots, stir in, and bring back to a boil. After 5 minutes, add the daikon. Cook until the vegetables are just done, another 5 to 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning and adjust if you wish. (The stew can be made ahead to this point and set aside for up to 3 hours; refrigerate if for more than 1 hour. Bring back to a strong simmer before proceeding)
- Add the greens, if using, and stir in. They will turn bright green and be cooked almost at once. Serve hot
- Wash the chiles well, then cut off the stems and coarsely chop the chiles. Place them in a food processor, add the salt, and process to a paste. Add the sugar, if using, and the vinegar and pulse to blend. Alternatively, you can use mortal and pestle like I did
- Turn out into a bowl, using a rubber spatula to scrape the chile paste from the processor bowl, and add water to thin to the texture you desire. With the amount of water suggested above, the paste will be thick and dense with chiles, but it can be made quite thin by adding up to 1/4 cup water; it's up to you, just add another pinch of salt
- Stored in a clean glass jar with a tight-fitting lid in the refrigerator and it will keep for a week or so
