Whole Chicken in Black Bean Sauce: Spilled Milk #143

Delicious, simple and elegant: This dish will hit your palate like a sledgehammer of deliciousness!

Social media can be an amazing thing. A few weeks ago I saw a video on YouTube of a Chinese chef browning a whole steamed and cooled chicken in a wok. I marveled at the simplicity of creating a crispy skinned whole “roast” chicken by reversing the process. And I instantly realized I hadn’t made my whole black bean chicken in a long time. If I hadn’t been killing time on the couch going down food video rabbit holes, I might not have recalled this superb dish and made it for dinner.

I make several variations of black bean sauce stir fries all the time, and recipes for pork ribs and clams are on my website. I love the sauce on anything.

But on a whole chicken it is EASY and very special.

The reasons are simple: Not only does the gentle steaming maintain the integrity of the bird, but also the bold sauce — with sliced or hacked pieces of perfectly moist sweet chicken that have taken on the flavors from steaming in the sauce and not being glazed in it — is a very elegant way to eat poultry. I am not a big fan of white meat chicken, but in this recipe I love it because it cooks on the bone and steams in the sauce. Then nuanced steamed chicken is so succulent, and dragging it through the sauce hits your palate like a sledgehammer of deliciousness.

If you don’t have whole bird, you can use chicken pieces and brown them, reducing the cooking time by about 20 minutes.

Whole Chicken in Black Bean Sauce