With Pinot Gris, Premium Réserve, Bestheim, 2021
The flavour from this dish is from Shaoxing rice wine, which has a very special flavour. It is a bit sweet but also a little pungent.
Easy drunken chicken rolls
Ingredients:
3 skin-on, boneless chicken thigh fillets
20 goji berries, soaked and softened
1 bottle of LKK drunken chicken sauce
Salt and peppers for seasoning
Methods:
Flatten the chicken fillets by beating them with a meat hammer; or the back of a chef knife or cleaver knife. The fillets should double the size
Season the fillets with a small pinch of rock salt and peppers, place the goji berries in the middle line (the longer line) of the fillets
Take out a large tin foil and tightly roll the chicken thigh fillets with the goji berries in it. You should have three tin foil rolls
Steam the rolls for 40 mins and let cool. After that, take rolls from the foil and soak them in LKK drunken chicken sauce. Leave in fridge for at least 2 hours
Slice the rolls when serving. It should be served cold
Wine pairing:
This is my favourite Chinese appetizer. It is also a popular Shanghainese dish. It is good for Chinese new year because it is light and is decorated with lovely red goji berries. We love red in Chinese new year because it represents positivity.
The dominant flavour of this dish is from the Shaoxing rice wine, which has a very special flavour. The chicken soaked in the drunken chicken sauce becomes very tender and soft, it is savoury and has a very nice, sweet rice alcohol flavour, with a small kick of pungency in it. The goji berries not only look nice in this rather pale-coloured dish, but also add a small hint of acidity and soft sweetness to it. This is a difficult dish to pair because of the dominant rice wine flavour.
I tried few different wines and managed to find a Pinot Gris that matches well with it. Pinot Gris has strong peachy and melon flavour which brought out the sweetness of the dish and also balance out the alcohol flavour. It is not too overwhelming so it doesn’t compete with the Shaoxing wine flavour but complements it well. It has medium to high acidity which works perfectly with the saltiness of the chicken.
I have also tried a bottle of Junmai-shu sake. The lovely sweet rice flavour naturally goes well with the Shaoxing rice wine as well as the tender chicken fillets.
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