Grilled Tea Smoked Chicken (燒烤茶葉熏雞, Siu1 Haau1 Caa4 Jip6 Fan1 Gai1)

This is my version of tea smoked chicken using a marinated whole chicken and an outdoor barbeque grill. Any fragrant tea can be used for smoking, I happen to use oolong tea leaves. Tea smoking is usually associated with duck and done indoors in a covered wok, but chicken works just as well. In this case I used a whole chicken, but you can just as easily substitute chicken parts for the whole. I use my outdoor barbeque grill to cook the chicken because it’s so much easier (no cleanup) and the house doesn’t end up smelling of smoke (despite a good ventilation system over the stove). The traditional recipe for this dish has the unmarinated chicken (or duck) first steamed, then smoked, and then deep fried. When you eat this dish at a restaurant, that’s probably the way the dish was prepared, since the chicken or duck can be steamed well before being ordered, and then quickly smoked and deep fried before being served. The end result is a crispy tea smoked chicken or duck with succulent flesh.

My grilled version of tea smoked chicken doesn’t have the crispy skin that you find in the restaurant dish, but cooking the chicken is so much easier. The same ingredients used to tea smoke the traditional dish are used in the grilled version, except for the sugar. Sugar is one of the ingredients (amongst others) used in a foil packet to tea smoke the chicken. When a chicken or duck is tea smoked indoors in a wok, sugar can be used because of the short amount of time (maybe 10 minutes) needed to smoke the cooked chicken. Since I cook and tea smoke my chicken in a barbeque grill, the time needed to both cook and smoke the chicken is much longer (30-40 minutes), so the sugar burns and make the smoke acrid. So I leave the sugar out of the tea smoking ingredients when I use the grill.

I used a basic soy sauce marinade to grill the whole chicken. I put the chicken on a “beer can” stand to roast it upright in the barbeque. While I didn’t use a beer can to keep the chicken upright, I have an apparatus that has two rods attached to a pan that keeps the chicken standing while being grilled. The standing chicken is placed in the charcoal grate, without using the grill grate. The barbeque cover can’t be used if the standing chicken is placed on the grill grate in a 22.5 in. (57 cm.) barbeque grill, so that’s why the standing chicken is placed on the charcoal grate with the coals arranged around it in a circle.

You can look at the Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil (薑蔥油, Goeng¹ Cung¹ Jau⁴) recipe for instructions on cutting and arranging a chicken on a platter.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

6 lb.	3 kg.	Whole chicken (雞, gai1)
1 in.	2.5 cm.	Knob of ginger (薑, goeng1), crushed in a garlic press
4 cloves	4 cloves	Garlic (蒜, syun3), crushed in a garlic press
½ cup	120 ml.	Soy sauce (豉油, si6 jau4)
2 Tbs.	30 ml.	Hoisin sauce (海鮮醬, hoi2 sin1 zoeng3)
½ cup	120 ml.	Shaoxing rice wine (紹興酒, siu6 hing1 zau2) or dry sherry
1 tsp.	5 ml.	Ground white pepper (白胡椒, baak6 wu4 ziu1)
1 Tbs.	30 ml.	Sesame oil (麻油, maa4 jau4)

Smoking Ingredients

½ cup	120 ml.	Tea leaves (茶葉, caa4 jip6)
½ cup	120 ml.	Rice (米, mai5)
2 cloves	2 cloves	Garlic (蒜, syun3), lightly crushed
2 slices	2 slices	Ginger (薑, goeng1), lightly crushed
1	1	Dried tangerine peel (陳皮, can4 pei4)
4 whole	4 whole	Star anise (八角, baat3 gok3)
1 Tbs.	15 ml.	Cloves (香料, hoeng1 liu6)
2 Tbs.	30 ml.	Fennel (茴, wui4)
1 stick	1 stick	Cassia bark (桂皮, gwai3 pei4) or cinnamon
		Cherry wood smoking chips

Equipment

		Garlic press
		Aluminum foil to make the smoking packet
		Chicken stand (aka “beer can” stand)
22.5 in.	57 cm.	Covered charcoal or gas grill (or larger)

Instructions

Marinated Chicken on the Chicken Stand

1. Prepare the whole chicken by removing any remaining yellow skin and excess fat. Ideally all the yellow skin was removed during the vendor’s chicken cleaning process, but some always remains and this will prevent the marinade from penetrating the skin. Use your fingers and rub any remaining yellow skin from the chicken under running cold water.
2. Marinate the chicken in a covered container up to 48 hours, turning the chicken every 24 hours, in the refrigerator with the ginger and garlic crushed in a garlic press, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry, ground white pepper, and sesame oil. Take the chicken out of the refrigerator at least one hour before cooking and place onto the chicken stand.
3. Prepare the foil tea smoking packet

   

   Chicken Stand in the Barbeque Grill
   (substitute foil smoking packet for wood)

   by putting the smoking ingredients between two pieces of aluminum foil, sealing the ends, and poking holes into the top (for the smoke to escape) using a fork. Put the tea leaves, rice, lightly crushed garlic and ginger, dried tangerine peel, star anise, cloves, fennel, cassia bark or cinnamon stick, and cherry wood smoking chips onto one piece of the aluminum foil and mix together. Place the second piece of aluminum foil over the top of the smoking ingredients and seal the ends of the two pieces. Poke holes using a fork for the smoke to escape on the top of the aluminum foil packet. Since the packet will be placed over the charcoal in the grill, you can make two rectangular smoking packets by dividing the smoking ingredients in half, rather than making one large (square) packet.
4. Prepare the charcoal or gas grill for indirect cooking following the manufacturer’s instructions. Light the charcoal or preheat the gas grill accordingly.
5. If using a charcoal grill, remove the grill grate (the chicken will be placed directly on the charcoal grate) and arrange the lighted coals around the edges of the charcoal grate, leaving enough room to cook the standing chicken in the middle of the charcoal grate. For a gas grill, follow the manufacturer’s instructions as to which burners to leave on for indirect cooking. Put the foil packet(s) on top of the charcoal coals for smoking.
6. Carefully place the standing chicken onto the charcoal grate grill. Be careful since the standing chicken is being placed into the middle of a circle of hot coals. Cover the barbeque and let cook for 30-40 minutes. The temperature of your fire and previous experience with your grill will determine the total cooking time for the chicken.
7. Remove the chicken from the grill and allow to rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

Cutting and Arranging Instructions

Grilled Tea Smoked Chicken
(燒烤茶葉熏雞, Siu1 Haau1 Caa4 Jip6 Fan1 Gai1)

See the Poached Chicken (白斬雞, Baak⁶ Zaam² Gai¹) with Ginger-Scallion Oil (薑蔥油, Goeng¹ Cung¹ Jau⁴) recipe for detailed instructions on cutting and arranging a chicken on a platter. The following is an outline of the procedure to cut and arrange the chicken on the serving platter.

1. Separate the wing, drumstick-thigh, backbone, and breast from the chicken.
2. Cut the backbone into pieces and arrange the pieces on the serving platter.
3. Separate the drumstick from thigh and cut into pieces. Put the cut pieces onto the serving platter.
4. Repeat the above step for the other drumstick-thigh.
5. Separate the wing into pieces and put the cut pieces onto the serving platter.
6. Repeat the above step for the other wing.
7. Cut through the breast bone and separate the breast into breast halves.
8. Cut the breast halves into pieces and place the pieces on top of the drumstick-thigh pieces on the serving platter.
9. Repeat the above step for the other breast half.