Dezhou Braised Chicken

Dezhou braised chicken, also called five-spice boneless braised chicken, is a dish of this city in north-western Shandong. The Yucheng county gazetteer dates its origin to the Ming period at Yucheng and its completion to the Qing; the earliest maker it names is Wang Mingkui of Yueyawan village north of the city, whose family had boiled chickens for generations. Another account ties it to vendors carrying baskets along the canal wharves, and the Jia family genealogy dates the perfected recipe to 1692. In Dezhou the word pa means to prise something apart with a tool, to cook first over a fierce fire and then to simmer low until the flesh leaves the bone. The trademark was registered in 1982 and the technique entered the national heritage list in 2014.