Salt-baked chicken (ηηιΈ‘) is the signature dish of Hakka cooking and Meizhou's most famous culinary export. A whole chicken is rubbed with salt and aromatics, wrapped in paper, and cooked in a sealed clay pot filled with hot salt crystals. The salt conducts heat evenly and the sealed environment steams the chicken in its own juices, producing a texture that is simultaneously firm and extraordinarily tender, with the skin paper-thin and almost transparent. The flavour is intensely savoury.
The best versions in Meizhou come from restaurants that keep their salt mixtures continuously cycled β the salt absorbs flavour from successive chickens and becomes progressively more aromatic. Eat with plain steamed rice, which is the correct accompaniment. The dish is available at most restaurants in the city; the specialist salt-baked chicken restaurants near the city centre market produce the most consistent results.