Taiwan's Best Roast Chicken is Cooked The Ancient Way

[fire whooshing]

Ooh. Whoo.

Jesus.

It is 10:00 AM, we're right outside Taipei in Yilan.

We're at [speaking in foreign language] and we're about to

check out some of the most traditional

kiln-roasted chicken in Taiwan.

They're about to light the fire right now,

so let's take a look.

Welcome to the kitchen.

First thing in the morning, what chef is going to do

is fire these logs with gas

until he gets a very nice, consistent temperature.

[Eric] There's no flavor for the wood.

It really just acts as a heating agent for the entire drum.

[fire whooshing]

They're using probably recycled wood,

controls fire really well.

So the chickens here, in Taiwan,

there's this thing called [speaking in foreign language].

[Lucas] Okay.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

means it's slaughtered in the morning.

Yeah. Delivered in the afternoon.

So literally, warm body chicken, right?

Warm body, so breed is called [speaks in foreign language]

black feather chicken.

It's a lot meatier. The skin is thinner.

So let's go look at the salting process.

His hands are soaking wet.

He dabs his fingers into the bucket of salt

and then he uses that sort of salt water mixture

on his hands to rub it all over the chicken.

[Lucas] This is cool actually.

[Eric] Yeah, it's a small amount of salt.

Yeah, it's very minimal.

These vertical skewers, this is what's really cool.

In that, the chicken is roasting straight up,

kind of like a beer can chicken type of thing.

Because of the way they're positioned,

with the water pan in the bottom seems gonna go inside

of the cavity of the chicken,

which means that it's gonna cook inside out.

On the outside, it's gonna be continually dried,

but the added moisture of the air is actually going to make

that air hotter, faster.

That is kind of counterintuitive.

People usually think if you add water to a roasting process,

your skin won't be crispy.

But the water in this case will actually accelerate the heat

and it'll still give you crispy skin.

It's a technique that a lot of fine dining fancy chefs have

in their combi ovens,

which is a combination of dry and wet heat.

This is exactly not quite replicated

because it precedes that high-end technology.

[Eric] Each oven fits 16 chickens.

Four total is 64 chickens.

And chefs just told me that they have about 60 tables.

So it's very serendipitous and very efficient.

And on the weekends, they sell up to 400 chickens.

That's five turns on all four ovens.

[group speaking in foreign language]

[Eric] So every about 20 minute or so,

they need to rotate it.

If you look at the bottom of the pit,

the water has basically all dissipated

and now, the drippings have begun to form.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[chef speaking in foreign language]

Yeah, so the chicken's only been in here for 20 minutes.

This is the first turn.

So they need to do three turns in total.

With a lot of these ancestral cooking techniques,

the temperature regulation isn't with the thermometer

and a dial.

Heat comes in from the bottom here via the wood.

He's controlling the burn rate by feeding more wood

or letting it just turn into embers.

And on the other end, the output of the heat is controlled

with the lid over the top, he has a little wooden plank.

A little wooden brick. He can control the amount of airflow.

The more airflow, the hotter it gets.

But also, as he opens that lid, he's gonna release the heat

so that he can bring down the temperature.

[Eric] There are hot zones in the oven

and the hottest area in the oven is the one that's closer

by the pipe towards the end there of the oven.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[chef speaking in foreign language]

Okay, okay, so the chickens closest to the pipe

will finish faster than the rest of the batch.

The thing is like every single time you go to kitchen

where the roasting whole animals and it's that elemental,

a lot of it just comes down to experience

and the monitoring of the day-to-day.

I'm sure that the temperature of the climate

is going to affect how it cooks that day.

I'm sure how often he feeds it.

The quality of the wood, the wetness of the wood,

all of those need to be adjusted on a day-to-day basis.

These restaurants aren't really scalable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because it's so reliant on the chef's skill.

And it has to be here.

[Eric] Exactly.

Oh, oh. Whoo.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

Way more smoke than I thought. Holy cow.

Look at the how even the brown is.

Spin is.

[Lucas] There's nothing really burned at all.

[Eric] Yeah.

Chef was telling us earlier, the perfect chicken

has the skin puffed up, which is to say

that all of that water inside of that chicken becomes steam,

pushes the skin outwards so that it's a thinner membrane

that then crisps and you know that you have

chicken cooked properly. Yeah.

Beautiful. Holy cow.

Do you see that consistent golden brown?

You see how thin that skin is? It's like paper.

All that fat, all that chicken jus.

[Eric] This is our gravy later.

Everything that we lost by cooking it, we have retained.

It's about 11:00, the first customers

are starting to come in.

So the first kiln of chicken is done.

It's going to rest in that barrel in the back.

Some of it is going to the high temperature oven to crisp

and the next batch of raw chicken goes straight back in

to the first oven.

Nuts. Jesus Christ.

[Eric] This skin is really like,

it really reminds you of peking duck.

[Lucas] This guy was slaughtered about 10 hours ago.

Quickly brined as well, like rub through the salt basically,

and then straight into the oven.

Low temperature, high temperature, roasts.

Skin is crispy, already on the table.

[Eric] Just look at the glassiness of the skin, man.

First. Oh my goodness.

First. Did you catch that?

Holy cow.

It's like you can hear the skin just crackle.

It's shatteringly crisp.

Traditionally, when you see roast chicken

in Chinese restaurants, they cut it with cleavers.

Right.

But here, because it's so piping hot,

if you cut it with cleavers, the flesh falls apart.

Right, right, right.

So they use scissors to precision cut it.

Yeah. Or you can get gloves.

Yeah. And just tear away.

Like a carnal way of eating something this ancestral

and this proper.

First thing that comes off is the neck and the head.

The feet and then the wings, each of the legs

down by the joints.

and the backs of the chicken are chopped into pieces.

Chef is taking it apart and roughly assembling it again

so that it resembles a little bit of a chicken.

I'm amazed at how crispy this is.

[Eric] I'm amazed because there's nothing done to it,

you know?

It just proves- Fresh chicken.

Good ingredients, good technique,

every single time.

Nothing whets your appetite like That crispy skin

and that juicy flesh.

It seems like the perfect type of thing.

Finally, our turn.

But also, they are very, very famous for their bamboo.

So they take all the drippings.

Right.

'Cause it's a lot of drippings from one chicken, right?

So the excess gets made into braised bamboo.

Right.

So it's chicken fat bamboo.

Yeah.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[waitress speaking in foreign language]

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[waitress speaking in foreign language]

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[waitress speaking in foreign language]

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

So the chicken itself roasted, fresh out of the hot oven.

A little bit of white pepper seasoning on the side.

I'm assuming there's a bit of salt and sugar in there too.

So there's probably white pepper, salt, sugar, MSG.

And it's a proprietary blend but you know,

the core basics are the same.

And then there's a little bit of the chicken jus

on the side.

So it's mostly fat, that's a yellow on the top

and a little bit of liquid on the bottom.

And gloves, because we're gonna take it

upon ourselves, right? Yeah.

Is this...

This is very romantic.

When my mom and my dad were dating

and they didn't have money to buy an extra pair of gloves,

they would hang out in Canada and hold each other's hands

and then with the ungloved hand

and have it inside of their coat pocket to keep warm

and the other one they would share

one single pair of gloves.

This reminds me of that.

That sounds painful not romantic. I don't know, man.

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[Lucas] Oh, here is it. Oh.

_ Ay-ya-yay. There we go.

I feel like they saved the best for us.

The magic is when you turn it on its side

and you see there's no fat on it

because all of that fat that was on that chicken

had rendered out and it's down here, right?

You're heating fat so that it becomes liquid.

It does two things. One is it's basing the skin inside out.

So it's basically frying in its own fat.

And second, because this liquid is off the skin now,

everything left just becomes crispy.

You're never gonna get this with a regular

GMO conventional chicken.

It's way, way meatier.

I can squeeze it and it's not falling apart.

This in the mouth is texture. It's all just texture.

I'm just smelling a symphony of chicken.

Dude, the minute you touch the chicken

and you can smell it on your gloves.

Look right here. It's rendering onto the gloves.

All yellow fat. Literally.

Are you kidding me?

Look at that right here. That pocket of juice.

Look at that inside. So juicy.

I mean, they've really nailed the cook on here.

That's so crazy.

Cheers. Cheers.

[Lucas speaking in foreign language]

Mm.

Good. Very good. Very good.

It's actually salty enough, right?

There's a good amount of salinity in this

and when you bite it with a little bit of that

unrendered fat, it just completely fibs.

Good [beep]

The skin is the best part.

Skin truly is.

The skin is so good.

I expected no smokiness at all,

but it is a little bit smoky.

[Eric] Just a tiny bit.

[Lucas] It's got like a hint of smoke.

Yeah. Like a touch over.

I think the smoke leeches in.

Right.

And also, at the end of the day,

like the chicken is still creating a lot of steam, right?

Mm-hmm.

And it's catching on whatever was left over

from the last cook. Definitely.

The previous chicken batch

is seasoning the current chicken batch.

Right.

The pepper there is not really ceremonial,

it's about creating different flavor profiles

'cause if you're just eating chicken after chicken

after chicken bite.

Mm, so white pepper is the pepper fruit fermented,

lacto-fermented, which means that it picks up some of this,

some people call it stinky, but it has that like fragrance.

That really lands itself to the chicken

as well as a lot of Taiwanese cuisine.

Yep, yep, yep.

By the way, one of the best cuts of the chicken,

if you're sharing a whole chicken with your friends

or family is on that back on this spine near the butt,

right up here is the chicken oyster.

I mean, it looks a little bit like an oyster,

but it's a pocket next to the chicken thigh.

If you watch our episode on goose,

they refer to this part as the olam,

as the brisket of the goose.

Probably the most tender piece on the entire chicken thigh.

That's your snack.

Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect. Yum.

It's bouncy, yeah. The meat is bouncy.

Yeah. It has a springiness to it.

And it's self-contained. Yes.

So on the theme of chicken, this sauce is this juice.

So it's bamboo braised with scallions and the chicken fat.

[Eric] Chicken fat.

You can see all the layers of the bamboo in the middle.

You see that gloss?

You can see the glaze of the chicken over the top,

little bit of that scallion, papery thin.

Yum.

Oh my goodness.

It's even more chickeny than the chicken.

Yeah, I know.

I think 'cause they braised it-

It's so good. For a long time.

You know, I love bamboo, I like the variety of bamboo.

I love it in Taiwan.

Holy cow. Get the bamboo.

What if we made this whole episode about chicken

and actually the bamboo is like kind of the best part?

[Eric speaking in foreign language]

[waitress speaking in foreign language]

Water lily.

Another vegetable that is pretty unique to Taiwan.

I'm sure you can get it elsewhere,

but it is everywhere in Taiwan.

I mean, they look like scallions,

but they're not scallions, right?

They're not scallions.

It's like vegetable in noodle form.

Yeah.

Every time they make a stir fry, even these greens,

they'll drizzle a little bit of chicken fat over the end

just to give it that punch of chickeness.

It ties the whole thing together.

[both slurping] Mm.

[Lucas speaking in foreign language]

[Lucas clapping]

Garlic, chicken, fat and vegetables. Are you kidding me?

This really feels like the type of place

that you can only have in Taiwan.

Yep.

It's a heritage breed of chicken.

It's the ancestral approach to the cooking.

It's a purity of it all.

And it's the experience of the chefs.

Really, really incredible.

Again, to reiterate, come here, get the whole chicken,

get the bamboo.

You're welcome.

Onto the next?

Let's do it. Let's go.

I got one more piece here. One more stick.

Yeah, one more. I need some more here.

I'll take this one. I'm going out.

The way some people add a little bit

of extra virgin olive oil just at the end

for that aromatic punch,

they add a little bit of that chicken fat too

for their stir fries.

Just a little drizzle of schmaltz.

Give it a little bit more lift.

That mm.