Hoanh Bo chicken is a typical local chicken breed, whose fragrant and sweet meat is favored by diners. The Hoanh Bo rustic grilled chicken dish almost entirely preserves the natural flavor of chicken meat along with the aroma of Northwest spices.
When traveling to Quang Ninh, remember to enjoy the specialty Hoanh Bo rustic grilled chicken
Hoanh Bo rustic grilled chicken is a local specialty chicken breed. This chicken breed is small; hens weigh only 1.8 – 2.2 kg, and capons weigh 2.5 – 3 kg. These chickens have very small and short legs with bright yellow skin.
After generations of farming, local people have selected the breed and developed the best care procedures. To make the chicken delicious, locals have their own farming secrets. Chickens are mainly free-range, fed on "blooming paddy and corn", which means paddy and corn that have been soaked and boiled (as this chicken breed has a delicate digestive system, boiling paddy makes it easier for the chickens to digest).
Hoanh Bo chicken. Photo: Quang Ninh Newspaper.
After the free-range stage comes the "caging" fattening stage. At this point, the chickens are completely caged, fed hot cooked rice, and kept from moving around to fatten up, making the meat more delicious and fragrant. Based on folk experience, locals sometimes even give the chickens hot water to drink and hang the cages on trees to prevent disease.
With a good breed and meticulous care, Hoanh Bo chicken is highly favored as food. In particular, when boiled, the chicken has shiny yellow, crisp, and thin skin with very little fat under the skin. Sometimes, when chicken is boiled and chopped in the downstairs kitchen, guests upstairs can already catch its rising aroma.
Ingredients for marinating the chicken. Photo: Quang Ninh Newspaper.
To make Hoanh Bo rustic grilled chicken , the most important step is preparing the seasoning mixture for marinating. Spices such as lemongrass, shallots, garlic, chili, galangal, doi seeds, and mac khen seeds are finely chopped and pounded in a mortar. The highlight is doi seeds and mac khen seeds, two typical spices of the Northwest mountainous region.
Mac khen seeds.
Then pour the spice mixture into a bowl and season with sugar, seasoning powder, fish sauce, soy sauce... The entire pounded spice mixture is stuffed inside the chicken's cavity along with a sprig of pandan leaves. In particular, a can of beer is also inserted into the chicken's cavity to both add flavor and shape the chicken.
Doi seeds.
Finally, wrap the chicken tightly in fresh banana leaves, cover it with an inverted cast-iron pot, then cover the pot with rice husk ash and charcoal and burn continuously. In this way, the chicken is rustic-grilled for about 4 – 5 hours; the cast-iron pot heats up continuously and cooks the chicken meat inside.
After nearly 5 hours of being buried in hot ash and charcoal, the Hoanh Bo rustic grilled chicken is ready to enjoy. The finished chicken has a golden, crispy, and thin skin with little fat. Even though it is grilled whole, the chicken meat is still tender and evenly cooked down to every fiber, and in particular, the juices released from the meat are kept almost completely intact.
The finished grilled chicken. Photo: Quang Ninh Newspaper.
Although diners have to wait nearly 5 hours to enjoy the dish, the chicken will not disappoint even the most discerning guests. From its aroma to the meat, it cannot be mistaken for any other grilled chicken dish. Dipping the chicken meat into a bowl of dipping sauce mixed to your liking completes a truly authentic, perfect meal.
