In my family the male side have traditionally been the best cooks, and this is a dish that my grandfather regularly used to make. He taught it to my father, and now we serve a version of it at Hakkasan in Miami, where we found some incredible local chickens.

It is quite a simple, homely dish. My grandfather and father chopped up a whole chicken leaving the bones and skin, but I would use boneless chicken. The chicken is marinated in Chinese rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil, thickened with a little cornflour and then steamed with Chinese red dates, also known as jujube, cloud ear fungi, and dried Chinese lily flowers, also called “golden needles” or gum jum, all of which you can find in Chinese supermarkets.

What makes all the difference is using good-quality soy sauce, such as Kim Ve Wong and Lee Kum Kee’s Double Deluxe, both generally available in Asian stores, and premium Chinese rice wine, such as the Pagoda Brand 20-year-old Shaoxing. And a good-quality chicken, such as French black leg, because the delicate marinade lets you really taste the flavour of the meat.

Ingredients

Serves 4

Meat from a whole chicken, chopped into pieces about 2.5cm long

2 tbsp rice wine

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

2 tsp cornflour

Large piece of ginger, finely chopped

Handful of Chinese dried red dates

Handful of dried cloud ears (Chinese black fungi)

Handful of dried lily flower buds

Method

1 Marinate the chicken in a mixture of the rice wine, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger and cornflour on a plate for at least an hour.

2 Meanwhile, soak the cloud ears and lily flowers separately in warm water for an hour, then rinse. Cut off the hard stems of the flowers and fungi and cut them in half. Also halve the red dates.

3 Scatter the cloud ears, red dates and lily flowers over the top of the chicken. Put the plate inside a steamer for about 15-20 minutes or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked through. Serve with rice.

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