South City Kitchen

Chicken in paper

Paper-wrapped chicken is a summer party dish. Pauline D. Loh shows you how to re-create a taste of country goodness in the city kitchen.

This is one of those dishes that jolts my memories. I first tasted this in a restaurant on stilts in a rural suburb of Singapore. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse with peacocks crying in the backyard and rows of chicken and dove cotes lining the garden paths. In the large grass-fringed pond, hundreds of golden, red and white koi basked in the setting sun, and the rich light set them aglow like jewels.

About a year ago, I re-visited the restaurant and it is still as it was, only now, the city has grown about the farm and it looked a little out of place next to its neighbors - an uber-modern polytechnic campus and another of Singapore's ubiquitous housing estates. A super-highway has cropped off much of the farm's rolling backyards and the peacocks and koi are gone.

The paper-wrapped chicken, the restaurant's only signature dish, is still as tasty as ever.

I'm not really sure how or where this dish originated. I have eaten various versions in Singapore, Malaysia, and even Thailand and Hong Kong. I suspect that is an invention of the overseas Chinese migrants in Southeast Asia. The heavy fragrance of yellow wine, ginger and sugar are typical of the South China coastal regions, and the deep-frying in parchment paper suggests the hint of Western influence in these colonial hinterlands.

I have also seen this served in certain Cantonese restaurants in Australia and the United States, and it seems to be a popular banquet dish in London's Chinese restaurants as well. So, the dish has certainly traveled far and wide.

Whatever its antecedents, paper-wrapped chicken is fun food, tasty food, novelty food. It is great for a party because it can also be finger food. Traditionally, it is deep-fried, but I have found that it can be roasted in the oven quite easily and that makes it a really convenient dish for entertaining.

Stock up on plenty of beer, get a nice fat chicken, and you're ready to party. Just have a huge basket for the discarded paper and bones, lots of paper napkins and wait for the compliments and requests for the recipe.

Here's a step-by-step guide to great party food.

Ingredients (serves 6-8):

1 chicken (1.

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