Five-Spice Crispy-Skin Chicken

crispy-skin baked chicken seasoned with 5-spice powder and honey

The original plan was to deep-fry a whole chicken but I decided on baked chicken halves instead because I'm not too keen on deep-frying. The recipe is from my ancient Wei Chuan's Chinese Cuisine cookbook by Huang Su-Huei which is my favorite of all my Chinese cookbooks. The recipes in this book are simple, authentic, and delicious.

Perhaps I deviated too much from the recipe, the result may not be representative of the book's recipe. The skin came out crispy enough but probably not as crispy as deep-fried. But the flavor and aroma of the chicken are fantastic and the meat so moist. The 5-spice powder, honey, rice wine, and vinegar all go well together. I like it a lot. It's finger lickin' good.

Crispy-Skin Chicken
adapted from Wei Chuan's Chinese Cuisine by Huang Su-Huei

1 whole chicken, about 3 pounds
2 tablespoons fine sea salt
1 teaspoon five-spice powder
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons hot water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon rice wine
1 teaspoon cornstarch
about 10 cups oil for deep-frying

• Rinse and pat dry the chicken.
  
• In a small skillet heat salt over low heat until very hot. Remove from heat and stir in the five-spice powder. Let cool then rub half of the mixture into the cavity of the chicken. Reserve the other half to serve with the cooked chicken.
  
• In a small skillet heat the rest of the ingredients except oil until honey is dissolved. Baste the chicken with half of the mixture until completely coated. Reserve the remaining honey mixture and keep in the refrigerator.
  
• Place the chicken on a rack set on a baking sheet pan and refrigerate uncovered for 2 days, basting with the remaining honey mixture, until the skin appears dry (the book says to hang outside to dry for 8 hours or use an electric fan indoors).
  
• Heat oil in a deep pot or fryer and fry chicken over low heat for 30 minutes. Turn the heat to high and fry for 2 minutes more or until golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on paper towels. Cut into serving portions. Serve with lemon wedges and the remaining 5-spice salt.

My chicken obviously does not have cavity. I rubbed the 5-spice salt on the meat under the skin and all over the exposed meat. It has just the right amount of salt and the skin has a hint of sweetness from the honey. To bake: Preheat oven to 325° F. Bake on a metal rack set on a roasting pan until golden brown and juices run clear. Chicken halves: 1 hour; whole chicken: 1½ to 1¾ hours.

Thou Shalt Not Steal (Blog Posts and Photos)

A concerned reader alerted me that one of my entries, Maja Blanca, appears word for word complete with one of my photos without attribution to me or to KULINARYA guidebook, on a facebook page of a pretend chef. He purposely didn't link his page to mine and omitted KULINARYA to make it look like he "created" the recipe and cooked it himself, the title of his post is maja blanca, my way. I was told that at least 5 more of his food posts on his facebook pages were directly lifted from other people's blogs and had the audacity of putting a watermark on a photo that he swiped from those blogs. What a loser and a fraud!

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