Fermented bean curd are tofu cubes marinated and fermented either with salt and spices or rice wine, salt, and spices. My favorite of these different fermented bean curds are usually ones with rice wine as one of the ingredients. It gives the bean curd a little bit more tang and a lot more deeper flavor in my opinion. But if you can’t find a bean curd with rice wine as the ingredients, fret not, the other ones are also delicious!
In my chao ga recipe, I talked about 3 types of chicken. This recipe is going to use the American chicken you find at your normal American grocery stores. It’s quite simple and super delicious. Prep took maybe 10 minutes altogether.
Ingredients for Ga Nuong Chao
- Minced or blended shallots and garlic
- Chinese fermented beancurd
- Rice wine (optional)
- Salt and pepper
- Butter
- Sliced garlic
Steps for Ga Nuong Chao
- Clean and dry your whole chicken and preheat your oven to 350 — convection if you have that option.
- Prepare your marinade by mixing your bean curd (I use half a jar to 3/4 a jar for one chicken since I really like beancurd), add a splash of rice wine if you’d like, teaspoon of salt, teaspoon of black pepper, and your blended or minced shallots and garlic.
- Gently detach the skin of the chicken breast off the chicken flesh. Be careful not to break the skin. Rub a generous amount of marinade in between the skin and the chicken breast and in the pockets by the thigh. Rub the inside generously with marinade as well. You want to use the bulk of your marinade (the bits of garlic and shallots) to marinate the inside of your chicken and inside your chicken pockets.
- Optional: Using a sharp pointy knife, carefully make little incisions in your chicken breast (again make sure you don’t break your chicken skin) and stuff the little pockets with your garlic slices. Also optional: use kitchen twine to truss your chicken for optimal chicken form for roasting
- Use the rest of your marinade to rub the outside of your chicken. You can also stuff the cavity of your chicken with a few garlic cloves and peeled shallots.
- Place your chicken on a rack if you have one available and put this over a pan to catch drippings (line with foil for easy clean up). Pour/coat the skin of the chicken with some melted butter and salt your chicken. Salt from at least a foot above your chicken so that the salt disperses more evenly.
- Bake uncovered for around 1 hour 15 minutes or when the internal temperature hits around 180 degrees. If you don’t truss your chicken, try your best to tuck the wing tips underneath the body of the chicken so the tips don’t burn. Also keep a close eye on your bird, if some parts are browning too quickly, wrap or cover with foil.
- When the chickens about done, I like to do a final baste all over the chicken, put the oven to broil, and watch it brown a bit before removing my chicken to chill at room temp for ~ 15-20 minutes. Very important you watch your chicken during this step, it burns really quickly.
You can use drippings to make a nice gravy/sauce so make sure you also keep an eye on your drippings. If your drippings look like they can burn, add a bit of water to the pan. If you want to make the gravy use the drippings, some more chao/beancurd and water to make a sauce. To thicken it up, use a slurry (equal parts corn starch and cold water, mixed and poured into your sauce — you can also make a slurry using melted butter and corn starch 🙂 just mix well together before stirring it into your sauce).
This recipe is pretty much slapping a bird around with some marinade and basting with an oil. If you follow these general steps with any marinade (making sure no sugars or solid bits are on the skin that can make the bird burn easily), you can pretty much cook any bird this way with any marinade. It’s quick and easy and requires very little babysitting. You can use your leftover chicken bones and bits to make congee or soup afterwards too. 🙂 I like eating this with some rice or in salad wraps dipped in a bit more of the beancurd sauce or some hot sauce.
For those of you who are getting tired of your normal Thanksgiving turkey, you can use this marinade for your turkey as well! Of course, I highly recommend you still brine your turkey before using this recipe for an extra delectable turkey. Our family has eaten many Thanksgiving turkeys, but our chao marinated turkey is a family favorite. The beancurd’s salt content gets sucked into the meat of the bird and the beancurd left is just a yummy textural thing that’s leftover. Fermented beancurd is healthy, vegan, and packed full of nutrients and probiotics. I think this is why the American vegan community is slowly discovering it. There’s also an expensive yummy vegan cheese (my favorite melty vegan cheese) called CHAO which also uses our Vietnamese chao as one of its main ingredients. Cool to see adaptations to something I’ve always loved as a kid!
Happy Eating!