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.