Full steam ahead: Alice Zaslavsky’s chicken drumsticks with spring onion oil and cucumber salad
Wetness, as philosopher Derek Zoolander famously said, is the essence of beauty. And in our hunt for the next one-pan wonder or set-and-forget slow cooker recipe, sometimes steaming food is overlooked.
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Steaming is one of the world’s oldest “gentle” cooking methods, and south China is the place of origin for my recipe below, which riffs on white-cut chicken – though I came across it in a far more modern forum, as a reel on Instagram.
Because steaming is an indirect “wet” heat, it helps whatever is under-lid stay nice and juicy. Unlike boiling, which can be quite aggressive and leach nutrients and flavour into the water, steaming gently heats from the outside in, helping to retain moisture and taste.
A note of caution though – steaming may be gentle on whatever it is you’re cooking, but it’s no soothing facial experience. Always lift the steaming lid away from you, and wait for the initial burst of steam to dissipate before checking on your bounty.
If you don’t have a steaming device, bamboo or otherwise, you can create a makeshift one. Take a wide-bottomed, high-ish-sided pan that has a lid (your wide-bottomed casserole pan should fit the bill). Either scrunch three to four pieces of foil to the size of golf balls and arrange them evenly, or cross wooden chopsticks in an X, in the bottom of the pan or wok. Find a wide heat-proof plate that fits inside the pan and can sit steadily on top of the foil or chopsticks.
If you are using a bamboo steamer, you’ll notice that the lid isn’t fully airtight, which is great for preventing condensation from diluting any sauce or making your steamed dim sum go soggy. However, for a recipe like this one, a little condensation is actually preferable to help encourage more broth (more on this soon!), so I like to sub in my pan’s steel or glass lid instead.
When steaming, make sure you’ve got enough water. Depending on the width of the base of your pan, a cup should be enough to kick things off, but keep listening for a gentle burble and carefully add extra boiling water as you go (it’s good to keep some handy in the kettle). I’ve learned to keep a nose out too for the smell of caramelising bamboo, which is always a good indicator that it’s time for a top-up.
When done judiciously, steaming allows veg to retain vibrant colours, and steamed fish remains lovely and delicately pale. But steamed meat can look a little underdone if you’re not used to it. Thirty-five minutes (start the timer before even bringing the water to the boil) is plenty of time for standard chicken drumsticks to cook through, but you can always switch off the heat at this point and poke through to check that the juices are running clear and the meat comes off the bone easily. There may still be a little pinkness at the bone, but this is a natural chemical reaction rather than raw chicken.
Chicken drumsticks with steamed rice, sizzled spring onions and cucumber whack salad – recipe
Traditional white-cut chicken poaches the whole chook, which might not be practical for a whip-up Wednesday situation. That’s why Xiao Feng (@xiaofeng202208)’s version, using inexpensive and flavoursome chicken drumsticks, caught my eye. The entire recipe is captioned in Chinese, so my first few tests and retests were by eye. In doing so it became quite the go-to in our household, where it’s now affectionately referred to as The Drummies!
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The original recipe features dried red dates (jujubes), which I love, and if you can track some down, I recommend chucking a couple into the inverted bowl to flavour the broth.
You’ll find fresh shiitake in the fresh food aisle at larger supermarkets, green grocers and Asian grocers. You could use dried shiitake if you already have some – just halve the quantity and pop them in whole, then slice to serve.
I love the effect of the water vapour being sucked up into the inverted bowl and percolating together into an aromatic broth – like an insta-stock from the scraps! Strain the stock of scraps and pour only the liquid over the rice if you’re in a hurry. Or slice everything up (and fish out any skins or roots) to incorporate over the chicken as I’ve done here.
Whacking cucumbers is highly therapeutic, and makes for a wonderfully crunchy, cooling contrast against the delicately steamed chicken. Steaming some gai lan or broccolini to serve alongside this dish is very welcome, as is adding chilli flakes or fresh sliced chilli through the salad, or drizzling some chilli oil over the cooked chicken.
You’ll need a large bamboo steamer for this recipe – mine is 26cm.
Serves 4
6-8 chicken drumsticks (the bigger the better)
3-4 spring onions, dark green tops only, finely sliced (reserve the lighter green and white parts for the spring onion oil)
6-7 fresh shiitake mushrooms, finely sliced
1 thumb’s worth of ginger, skin trimmed and reserved, plus 6-8 rounds of the ginger, thinly sliced (reserve the remaining ginger for the cucumber salad)
1 bunch coriander, roots and stems, washed well (reserve the leaves for the cucumber salad)
Steamed jasmine rice, to serve
Chilli oil, to serve (optional)
For the cucumber whack salad
2 garlic cloves, grated
Grated ginger (from above steamed chicken ingredients)
1 tbsp soy sauce
A pinch of sugar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
½ bunch of coriander leaves (from above steamed chicken ingredients)
4-5 Lebanese cucumbers
For the sizzled spring onion oil
3-4 spring onions, lighter green and white parts, finely sliced (from above ingredients list)
Grated ginger (from above ingredients list)
Grated garlic (from cucumber salad ingredients list)
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
A pinch of sugar
60ml neutral-flavoured oil (¼ cup, I like grapeseed or rice bran)
To steam the chicken, find two bowls – a large, shallow one that just fits into the bamboo steamer, and a small, deeper one that fits in the middle, leaving enough space to nestle the chicken around it.
In the small bowl, add the dark green tops of the spring onion, along with the mushrooms, ginger skin, and coriander roots and stalks.
Place the larger bowl on top of the small one; then, firmly holding both bowls, flip them upside down so the small bowl is inverted in the middle of the larger bowl. Arrange the chicken drumsticks around the smaller bowl, then place a thin round of ginger on top of each drumstick (reserve the rest of the ginger for the cucumber salad).
Place the chicken bowl into the bamboo steamer and set the bamboo steamer on top of a pan or wok that is slightly smaller than the base of the steamer. Add a cup or so of water to the pan or wok, then crank the heat to medium-high and bring to the boil with the lid on, setting the timer for 35 minutes.
Related: Green is good: Alice Zaslavsky’s winter pie with brussels sprouts, leeks and cheesy potato – recipe
To make the cucumber whack salad, grate the rest of the ginger. In a medium bowl, add half of the grated ginger and half of the garlic (set aside the remaining ginger and garlic for the spring onion oil). Stir in the soy sauce and sugar until the sugar dissolves, then add the sesame oil. Taste for seasoning, as soy sauce varies in saltiness, and add more as necessary. Roughly chop a handful of the coriander leaves and leave these to languish on top, like a hat, until ready to serve.
To “whack” the cucumbers, lay them on a board and carefully but firmly smack with the flat side of a knife until they burst, then slice into chunky bits. Add to the soy sauce mixture to soak up the dressing.
To make the sizzled spring onion oil, place the spring onion and reserved grated ginger and garlic into a heat-proof bowl or jug, then add the sesame oil and a pinch of sugar. In a small saucepan, gently heat the neutral oil, then pour it over the spring onion mixture to “sizzle”.
When the 35 minute timer goes off, check the chicken is cooked. If it needs more time, steam it for a further five minutes, then set aside. Use tongs or a tea towel to carefully lift off the smaller inverted bowl (caution: hot!) and marvel at the schmaltzy broth underneath. Remove the coriander stalks and roots and discard.
To serve, stir the coriander leaves through the cucumber salad. Spoon the jasmine rice on to a large platter, and arrange the chicken drumsticks over the top. Pour the broth over the chicken, followed by half of the spring onion oil. Serve the chicken rice and cucumber salad, with the remaining spring onion oil in a bowl on the side.
