Hong Zao Chicken (红糟鸡)

This is a traditional Fu Zhou (hock chew 福州) dish.  Hong Zao 红糟 (red vinasse) is the remains of the fermented glutinous rice and red yeast rice for making red rice wine.   I think you can get this in supermarket, but I use home made ones as my mom made the red rice wine at home.  (I can post the recipe here, but I must say I have not made the wine myself).  Many friends have told us that my mom’s Hong Zao taste so much better compared to those from the supermarket. 

This version I introduced here is a little wet with thick gravy.  You can cook it to be a little more soupy, and can be served with rice noodles 面线 (mee sua).

Ingredients

1. 1 chicken (or equivalent of chicken parts, eg 6-8 drum sticks or chicken wings)
2. 3 cm section of ginger
3. 2 shallots
4. 2 garlic
5. 4 tablespoon hong zao (红糟)
6. 2 tablespoon sugar
7. 1/3 cup rice wine or hua diao (花雕)
8. 1/3 cup water
9. 1 teaspoon salt
10. 1 tablespoon light soya sauce
11. 4 tablespoon cooking oil

Method

1. Peel the ginger, shallots, garlic and chop into small pieces.
2. Wash and chop the chicken into chucks pieces.
3. Using medium heat, in a pot (or wok or pan with cover), add cooking oil and chopped ginger, shallots, and garlic and sauté till fragrant. 
4. Add in the hong zao and stir fry till fragrant of wine is in the air.  Be careful to use low to medium heat as it may burnt.
5. Add in the chicken, salt, sugar, soya sauce and continue to stir fry for 1-2 mins. 
6. Add in the wine and water, mixed it, and cover and simmer using low heat for 10 mins.  Open, stir to allow the gravy to coat the chicken, cover and simmer for another 10 mins. 
7. To have more kick in the alcohol fragrant, after cooking pour in another 2-3 tablespoon of rice wine or hua diao.
8. Serve hot.

To make the soupy version, in step 6, you add in about 3-4 bowls water to your liking.  You just have to add more salt to taste.  You may also add in pre-soak shitake mushroom in step 5.