Salt-Roasted Chicken

Within the small realm of roasting, the Chinese do not limit the technique to the indirect dry heat generated by an oven. For instance, at home, where there is no oven, a cook will “roast” by burying the ingredient in salt within a wok on top of the stove or encase it in clay and bury it in hot ashes. In this recipe, the chicken meat is succulent and the skin has a very unusual texture: it is firm but not really crisp; soft but not moist. The chicken is not at all salty. As with Fire Duck,