Beggar's Chicken also called "jiaohua ji" in the Shanghainese dialect, and the chicken is stuffed, wrapped, and roasted in this traditional Eastern Chinese recipe also this dish is very popular with Far Eastern gourmets.

An Origin of "Beggar's Chicken"
People trace to the source of Hangzhou's "Beggar's Chicken" and find a story.It happened long long ago. The federal dynasty imposed heavy tax on civilians, and people were deprived of everything. Family broken up, they strayed everywhere as beggars. One day, a beggar was floating in Changsu of Jiangsu Province, cold and hungry. Little by little, he couldn't stand up and fainted. His fellow sufferers were trying to save him. They collected wood and burned it to warm him up. One fellow sufferer took out the only remained chicken and prepared to cook for him. But without any tools to cooking, they were very worried. Suddenly, one of them got an idea. He suggested wrapping up the chicken with slush, and putting the mud pie into fire to bake. They continuously collected wood and baked mud pie. Finally, when the chicken was fully cooked, they began to knock open mud. To everyone's surprise, the feather was also falling off with mud, and the chicken smelled very nice. The aroma attracted all neighbors around. They came and couldn't stop praising the unique cooking style and the unique taste.

Later, Louwailou absorbs this cooking experience and makes some improvement. They takes "Yue Chicken", Shaoxing's Wine and the lotus leaf in West Lake as the material. First, they kill a fresh "Yue Chicken" and clean it, add all kinds of spices, stuff condiment in chicken's stomach, then bind it with West Lake lotus leaf, wrap it with a kind of mixture made by Shaoxing wine, salt water and mud from wine jar, finally bake it in steady fire for three to four hours. The mud pile is opened in front of guests. Because the chicken is cooked in a sealed envelope, the original taste is perfectly kept, and with the flavor of wine penetrating into chicken, you will feel a fragrance coming when opening the mud. Thus this dish is full of not only nutrition but also sentiment. That's why when tourists come to Hangzhou, they all want to taste this traditional and famous dish.

How to cook
Ingredients:

1 2 1/2 - 3 pound fryer chicken
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ginger juice
4 tablespoons oil
1 scallion (green onion, spring onion), chopped fine
4 ounces pork, shredded
1 tablespoon sherry
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
2 ounces preserved Yunnan cabbage, julienne
1 large piece of aluminum foil
Preparation:

1. Rub cleaned chicken with salt. Rub ginger juice inside chicken. Set aside.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in wok. Stir-fry scallion. Add pork. Stir on high heat. Add sherry, soy sauce, and sugar. Remove to bowl.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons more oil in wok. Stir-fry cabbage. Pour in meat mixture. Stir-fry 1 minute.(Add more sugar if desired).

4. Stuff meat mixture into chicken. Wrap in foil and place in pan.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake chicken 1 hour. Then turn heat to 400 degrees and bake 15 more minutes.

6. Remove foil. Remove stuffing from chicken to platter. Cut chicken into bite-sized pieces. Arrange on top of stuffing. Serve hot.