Easy oven-steamed emperor herbs chicken recipe

Emperor herbs chicken is a Chinese dish where herbs stuffed and marinated chicken is wrapped by layers of parchment paper and aluminium foil before steaming for hours. This cooking method helps to produce juicy and tender chicken with tasty herbs broth. Apparently, this dish was named after an emperor's favourite dish and thus, emperor herbs chicken. Thankfully we don't need to be an emperor to enjoy this dish today!

It's not difficult to create this dish from scratch, you just need to gather all the required herbs such as dong quai (chinese angelica), liquorice, codonopsis, ginseng root, red dates and goji berries. However, I chose to use the ready made packet which consists of all the main herbs except red dates and goji berries. The ready made emperor herbs chicken packet usually comes with a packet of herbs/spices as well as a plastic wrap that can be steamed and a sheet of aluminium foil.

There are a number of brands producing emperor herbs chicken packets. These packets can be easily found at Asian supermarkets which carry Malaysian or Singapore products such as Hometown Asian Supermarket on Elizabeth Street as well as Laguna at QV. So far, I have tried the A1 brand (from Malaysia) and House of Yi (from Singapore). I prefer the later as House of Yi's herbs are not 100% grounded into powder. You can still see the herbs in small bits. It also has a stronger herbs taste as compared to the A1 brand.

By following the cooking instruction on the packet, the chicken is to be steamed for 2 to 2.5 hours. That's a tad long for me and thus, I decided to cook it using the oven-steam method like how I cooked the oven steamed chicken previously. With oven, the cooking time is significantly reduced to 1.5 hours. It's important to replace the plastic wrap with parchment paper if you're using an oven! Otherwise, the plastic wrap might melt, causing a health hazard.

Recipe:

(4-6 servings)

1 whole chicken

1 emperor herbs chicken packet

A handful of red dates without seeds

A handful of goji berries

1/2 cup of water (if you would like to have more broth)

1. Lay aluminium foil follow by sufficient parchment paper on kitchen top.

Warning: do not use the plastic wrap as supplied if you're using an oven.

2. Wash the chicken and rub the herbs all over the chicken.

3. Wash and rinse red dates and goji berries before stuffing them into the chicken. You could leave a few on the chicken.

4. If you're looking for more broth, pour 1/2 cup water into the stomach of the chicken where the red dates and goji berries are stuffed.

5. Wrap the chicken tightly with parchment paper, follow by aluminium foil.

6. Bake for 1.5 hours at 190c. Rest the chicken in the oven for about 10 mins once it's done.

7. Cut the chicken and serve.