Chinese New Year Day 3: Feast on Super Stir-Fried Chicken
What Chinese New Year feast would be complete without a show-stopping centrepiece dish? Huairou Snail Farm in Beijing offers not just organic vegetables, but also free-range roosters. So, what’s the best way to prepare them? Snail Farm shares their recipe for a “Super Stir-Fried Chicken”. Get ready to feast on it for the third day of the Lunar New Year!
Ingredients:
1 free-range rooster from Snail Farm, bell peppers (for colour), 2 liang (about 100g) each of spring onions and ginger, 10 Sichuan peppercorns,
1 star anise, a small piece of cinnamon bark, 2 slices of Angelica root (Bai Zhi), light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, 1 can of beer, salt
Method: Allow around two hours for the whole process
1. Wash and chop the rooster into pieces (no need to parboil fresh chicken). Chop the bell peppers.
2. Heat a generous amount of oil in a wok. Fry the ginger slices until golden, then add the spices and stir-fry until fragrant.
3. Add spring onion stalks. Lay the chicken pieces flat in the wok and pan-fry until the base is set, then stir-fry.
4. Stir-fry until the surface is lightly caramelised and the oil runs clear. Add a splash of dark soy sauce for colour.
5. Stir in the beer, then add enough boiling water to cover the chicken.
6. Season with salt and light soy sauce. Cover and simmer over medium heat.
7. When the sauce has almost reduced, toss in the green and red peppers and stir-fry briefly.
For purchases, follow @Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market
Dinner’s ready! This New Year, savour some good food with a known provenance.
Foodthink has partnered with farmers from the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market to present a collection of “Lunar New Year recipes” featuring their own produce.
You won’t find measurements down to the gram or steps timed to the minute here, nor will you see overly elaborate techniques.
Instead, there is a quiet confidence in the ingredients, paired with straightforward advice given as you would for your own family.
When ingredients are grown with care, there’s no need to overcomplicate things. Simple, efficient cooking and the right temperature are all it takes.
Behind every dish in this collection stands a real person—
our farming partners know exactly what makes their produce special, and they know how to prepare it in a way that truly does justice to its quality.
When a piece of tofu can tell you its origin, a chicken can share its life story, and a carrot dares to ask you to leave the skin on—exceptional flavour follows naturally.
From the second to the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, we’ll feature a New Year’s dish from six different farmers, one each day.
Day 2: Aromatically Steamed Free-Range Mountain Pork
Grown with care, prepared with ease, enjoyed with confidence.
