SERVES 4 AS A MAIN COURSE, 6 TO 8 AS PART OF A MULTICOURSE MEAL
Master sauce dishes are among the most approachable in the Chinese culinary lexicon, the coq au vin of the would-be-Chinese-cook’s world.
Baby chickens—poussin, in French, and now commonly called so in gastronomic English—are ideal when cooked whole in a master sauce. The flavors and colors of soy, rice wine, cassia bark, and orange zest penetrate the skin and accentuate the sweet goodness of the flesh.
The poussin can be served hot and freshly pulled from the sauce or left to chill and enrich in the sauce as detailed below. Either way, it is a simply done dish, requiring only a few ingredients and no culinary bravery.
In addition to larger breasts that can be stewed successfully in master sauce, the succulent liquid is also a great vehicle for flavoring heartier vegetables like mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes, as well as hard-cooked eggs (the latter a traditional Chinese snack). Simmered briefly in the sauce, the vegetables become quite rich and potent, and offer a very nice contrast to an otherwise mild dish of rice or pasta.
In traditional northern Chinese homes, master sauces were added to and kept simmering literally over several generations, much like a mother yeast starter in other parts of the world. Enriched by the first stewing, the sauce becomes the base of the next dish—whether it be another chicken, a dinner of chicken or duck legs, or perhaps a pork butt or loin of beef. The method for renewal is simply to heat the original sauce (which may be frozen) and then taste and “adjust up” with more of whatever ingredient the tongue desires in roughly equal proportion to the original recipe. Sauce renewals inevitably involve adding more stock or water to cut the richness (and saltiness) gained from the initial simmering. Do not be surprised if all that is required for the first rerun is the simple addition of stock or water; if your aromatics were very fresh, their potency from the first use will last through the second.
2 fresh poussin (trimmed weight 10 to 12 ounces each)
MASTER SAUCE:
2½ cups China Moon Double Stock (page 72) or unsalted chicken stock
2 cups soy sauce
⅓ cup Chinese rice wine, plum wine, or dry sherry
6 quarter-size coins fresh ginger, smashed
4 fat scallions, cut into 1-inch nuggets and smashed
1½ star anise, broken into their 12 individual points
2 ounces Chinese golden rock sugar, smashed into bits (⅓ cup after smashing)
1 tablespoon crumbled cassia or cinnamon bark
Thinly pared zest (no white pith) of ½ scrubbed orange
½ teaspoon Szechwan peppercorns
Coriander sprigs or scallion brushes, for garnish
One of the finest cooks in the world—and surely one of the most charming men on the planet—is the French chef, Jacques Pépin. Shortly after China Moon opened, Jacques was in San Francisco filming a week or so of his TV series and he became an after-midnight habitué in our large prep kitchen downstairs. He’d perch on a stool night after night, a glass of Champagne in hand, and entertain me and my first sous-chef, Barbara Haimes, until 2 or 3 a.m. while we stirred great batches of poussin in woks full of master sauce. While the birds got sauced, he somehow stayed sober. I considered it a blessing on our chickens that we’d had his benediction!
1. Chop off and discard the tail and skinny wingtips of the birds. Clean the cavities well of kidneys, blood, loose membranes, and fat sacs, then flush with cold water. Pat dry inside and out.
2. In a wok or heavy, non-aluminum pot large enough to hold the chickens snugly, bring all of the sauce ingredients through the peppercorns to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
3. Add the poussin and ladle the liquid over the top while the sauce returns to a simmer. The repeated shower of hot liquid will sear and color the birds. Cover the pot and simmer the poussin for 15 minutes. Turn and baste the birds midway through cooking. (If you are cooking a single large chicken, extend the simmering time to 40 minutes.)
4. Carefully remove the birds to a large plate, breast side up. The skin will be very fragile; take care not to tear it. Tilt the birds over the pot to drain the cavities of sauce. Strain the sauce, discarding the solids.
5. To serve the birds freshly stewed, let them stand 10 minutes before cutting so the juices do not run freely. With a sharp, thin-bladed cleaver or chef’s knife, cut off the wings and legs at the joints. Cut through the breastbone and along both sides of the backbone; discard the backbone. Put each half, bone side down, on the board and cut it crosswise into pieces. Whack with a conviction you may not feel so the knife cuts cleanly through the bone. Rearrange the birds in more or less their original shape on heated plates of contrasting color. Spoon a bit of the hot sauce on top and garnish with a fresh flag of coriander sprigs or scallion brushes.
6. Or, for fuller flavor, refrigerate the birds covered in the sauce for 1 to 2 days and serve them cold or at room temperature. First refrigerate the sauce, uncovered, until it is just cool enough to handle (and no longer hot enough to further cook the chickens). Return the birds, breast side down, to the casserole or a container of similar size. Pour the sauce over the birds, cover, and refrigerate. The juices will gel upon cooling. To serve, use your fingers to gently clean the birds of clinging sauce, then chop the birds as described. Arrange the pieces on plates or a platter of contrasting color. Spoon a bit of the jellied sauce on top and garnish with the coriander or scallion.
7. Refrigerate or freeze the excess master sauce for further use.
MENU SUGGESTIONS: Cold, the poussin is perfect alongside a simple salad or as part of a “Peking antipasto” platter with one of our cold noodle dishes. If you are serving the poussin hot, it is most delicious alongside rice and a simply sautéed green vegetable or a colorful vegetable mélange.