Those who have been to Ipoh Malaysia would have either tried or hear about their famous Salted Baked Chicken. Visitors on day trips will usually buy them in boxes for friends and family. Having tried their salted baked chicken on the spot, I can only say it is savoury, juicy and very delicious. With the current COVID 19 situation, all travel plans are out of the window so it will be some time before I can visit Ipoh again.
So when I saw the local provision stores selling this Salted baked chicken spice mix, I had to buy it and make Salted baked chicken myself to satisfy my cravings. There are a few brands of the mix available so just grab any brand you can get your hands on. The packet costs about SGD 1 to 2 each and you will only need 1 packet each time.
For those interested to find out the ingredients of the mix; they have angelica Sinensis and chuanxiong rhizome which is both Chinese herbs, pepper, ginger, five-spice, modified corn starch, MSG and fine salt. If you are not able to get the spice mix, you can try to purchase these ingredients to replicate the seasoning.
Some additional seasonings I am using is the Chinese cooking wine and honey.
I am using a full chicken which is chopped into big chunks; the drumsticks left uncut and the rest cut int quarters and make cuts onto the skin of the chicken for the mix to marinate the chicken better. Pour in the powder spice mix.
Put in 1 tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine to remove any chicken raw smell and 2 tablespoons of honey. Rub the mix and the honey onto the chicken evenly.
The marinate mix with the honey should be dry and sticky so it sticks onto the chicken well. Wrap the well-coated chicken with aluminium foil and leave it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
You can choose to steam or bake them. The steamed version will moister while the baked version drier. When you bake them, you can open up the aluminium top so that the chicken cooks faster. However, if you are cooking in a bigger oven, you can leave the aluminium wrap close so the chicken does not dry out.
I am baking them in a tiny oven so I am baking them with 200 temperature and it took about an hour to get them well cooked.
The chicken will have some juices and the skin is very fragrant with the spice mix as it has Chinese herbs and the meat is very savoury and tender. This is super easy to make as long as the spice mix is ready-made but is great to satisfy the salt-baked chicken cravings.
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 