Dezhou Paji Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
In addition, the evolution and development of this technique carry many beautiful folk legends and historical allusions, and it possesses considerable historical and cultural value.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Dezhou braised chicken making technique is a traditional culinary craft that originated in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, and is chiefly distributed in Dezhou City and its surrounding areas. It evolved out of the technique of making roast chicken, and comprises such meticulous steps as selecting the ingredients, curing, shaping, deep-frying, boiling and braising. Dezhou braised chicken is renowned at home and abroad for its five-spice flavour and for being of high quality and fine taste, and the finished product is handsome in shape and distinctive in flavour. The raw material of the Dezhou braised chicken making technique is the large-tailed variegated chicken unique to northern Shandong, with a spring chicken reared for about ten weeks as the main ingredient. There are eleven process steps, great and small — slaughtering the chicken, scalding it, opening the belly, washing it, coiling the bird (that is, shaping it), colouring it, frying it, trussing it with a fork, boiling it, lifting it from the pot and packaging it — together with sixteen fine condiments; the bird is glazed with honey, fried in vegetable oil and finished by careful "braising". The ingredients of Dezhou braised chicken are carefully chosen and the formula is strict, compounded according to traditional Chinese medicine: flavour is the starting point, but health preservation is considered even more. Besides the rigorous ingredient procedure, the braising broth is the core element; its colour is golden-red and its aroma lingers. In terms of flavour characteristics, Dezhou braised chicken is beautifully shaped, golden in colour with red showing through the yellow, tender in flesh, light and refreshing, its fragrance penetrating to the bone and perfuming the hall. Shake it and the flesh parts from the bone; savour the breast slowly and the meat is crisp-tender with a hint of grain fragrance; chew the bones and the marrow is like paste, with a long, lingering aftertaste. Over more than 300 years, through the transmission and innovation of successive generations of Dezhou braised-chicken makers, the production and processing methods of Dezhou braised chicken have been perfected day by day. Historical sources record that with the opening of the Grand Canal from Beijing to Hangzhou, Dezhou became an imperial highway hub linking the capital with nine provinces, and its economy flourished. At the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, people were already hawking roast chicken at the wharves and markets. In the thirty-first year of the Kangxi reign, roast-chicken craftsmen represented by Jia Jiancai improved the technique in an orderly way, boiling over a high flame and braising over a low one, and created the original method of braised chicken, which has been handed down to this day by master-to-apprentice transmission. Having weathered several hundred years, the Dezhou braised chicken making technique produces a chicken excellent in colour, aroma, taste and form; it has gradually developed from a snack into a renowned delicacy and become a symbol of local culture. The Dezhou braised chicken making technique highlights the traditional Chinese way of nurturing life and the principle of supplementing the diet chiefly with foods that are both medicine and food, and it concentrates culinary wisdom.
Archival Record of Process Steps
The raw material of the Dezhou braised chicken making technique is the large-tailed variegated chicken unique to northern Shandong, with a spring chicken reared for about ten weeks as the main ingredient. There are eleven process steps, great and small — slaughtering the chicken, scalding it, opening the belly, washing it, coiling the bird (that is, shaping it), colouring it, frying it, trussing it with a fork, boiling it, lifting it from the pot and packaging it — together with sixteen fine condiments; the bird is glazed with honey, fried in vegetable oil and finished by careful "braising".
Shaping the bird
After scalding, opening and washing, the still-hot bird is folded into a fixed shape: legs crossed into the cavity, wings folded back and the neck tucked in, so the bird holds together through frying and boiling.
Honey glazing and frying in vegetable oil
The shaped bird is coloured, fried in vegetable oil until the skin takes colour while being turned for evenness, and glazed with honey so the finished surface is golden with red showing through.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Dezhou braised chicken making technique has Dezhou as its birthplace and its centre of distribution, and its reach is not limited to the urban districts: in the counties under Dezhou and even in the towns of neighbouring provinces, there are braised-chicken shops that set up their stoves by this same method. Dezhou lies on the bank of the Grand Canal; in the Ming and Qing periods it was a transfer wharf for grain shipped from south to north, and the coming and going of merchants spread the methods of roast chicken and braised chicken along the canal. Today, with transport by rail and road and with cold-chain shipping, the distribution of the technique extends along with its markets.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Dezhou braised chicken making technique is passed down from master to apprentice, and over three hundred years it developed from roast chicken alone into braised chicken, with the method growing ever finer. The raw material comes from the large-tailed variegated chicken of northern Shandong; the condiments are compounded with an eye to both flavour and health; honey glazing, frying in vegetable oil and careful braising follow one upon another, and the finished bird parts from the bone when shaken and yields marrow like paste when savoured. Its value lies not only in taste: the trading memory of the canal wharf, the festive gifts of the countryside and the ideas of health preservation have all been handed down generation after generation through this bird.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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