Recipe Review: Silver Paper Chicken

This is the second of my recipe reviews from Steven Raichlen's Barbecue! Bible. According to Raichlen, Silver Paper Chicken "was inspired by San Francisco's celebrated dim sum palace, Yank Sing." These are  chicken thighs or breasts, marinated with soy sauce, five spice powder, and a few other things, then individually wrapped with scallion in aluminum foil and put over direct heat on the grill until done (about twenty minutes). The recipe calls for bone in thighs but I used boneless, skinless thighs and had excellent results. The finished product makes a great appetizer. It would go well as a starter for Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork.

Preparing these is very easy. Cut the thighs or breasts in half. Mix the marinade ingredients together and marinate for at least a couple of hours. When you're ready to grill seal each piece with some scallion and a little bit of the marinade in a small foil square and start cooking!

As you can see from the finished product above, these come out nice and juicy and, you can take it from me, extremely tasty. The five spice powder, a blend of cinnamon, pepper, cloves, Sichuan peppercorns, and star anise, give the chicken a distinctly Asian flavor.

If you want to impress your friends with the range of your grilling ability you definitely want to try these.

Obligatory quibble: Like the other recipes in The Barbecue! Bible, this isn't truly barbecue since it's prepared over a direct grill. Who cares? It's the taste that counts.

Recipe Review: Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork

I reviewed Steven Raichlen's The Barbecue! Bible last week. This week I'll talk about a couple of his recipes. The first one is Susur Lee's Chinese Barbecued Pork. According to Raichlen, Susur Lee was born in Hong Kong and owns a restaurant in Toronto called Lotus. Well, he used to own a restaurant in called Lotus. As I said in my review of the book, I have an old edition. Since then Lee has moved on to other culinary pursuits.

Susur Lee's current whereabouts and activities aren't really relevant to how good his Chinese barbecued pork recipe is. And it is good. One of my favorite Chinese dishes is barbecued spare ribs. The sweet glaze they use gives the ribs an exotic flavor and unique red tint. I've tried many times to duplicate this, to no avail. Until I tried this barbecued pork recipe. It uses pork tenderloins instead of ribs but possesses the same taste. The only thing missing is the red tint. I can live with that.


The ingredients are shown on the right:

• Pork tenderloin
• Celery, chopped
• Carrot, chopped
• Onion, chopped
• Ginger, minced
• Tangerine or orange zest (I used both)
• Rice wine or dry sherry (I had sherry handy)
• Soy sauce
• Maple syrup
• Asian dark sesame oil

Preparation is easy. Combine the vegetables and liquids to make a marinade. Marinate the tenderloins at least a day (two days is better). On cooking day remove the tenderloins from the marinade then strain the marinade and reduce it in a sauce pan on the stove.

Grill the tenderloins until done, brushing frequently with the marinade. Let them rest, slice, eat. The remaining marinade makes a great sauce. Steamed cauliflower goes well with this entree.

What makes this recipe so great while all my previous attempts failed? It was the sesame oil. I think that added the piece I've been missing to solve the Chinese barbecue puzzle. Now I can't wait to try it on ribs.

Obligatory quibble: Like the other recipes in The Barbecue! Bible, this isn't truly barbecue since it's prepared over a direct grill. Who cares? It's the taste that counts.