THERE are many ways of preparing paper-wrapped chicken. As in many recipes, the featured ingredient, chicken, is often accompanied by some savoury (and fatty) Chinese ham, fat back, or sausage.
In fact, in most Chinese restaurants, this seemingly safe and innocuous dish has a great deal of hidden fat, especially when the chicken skin has not been removed. About 50 per cent of the fat calories are present in the skin.
It doesn't compromise the credibility of the restaurant kitchen when presenting the 'paper-wrapped' chicken in aluminium foil instead of paper.
However, in every case, the paper or foil envelope containing the marinated chicken is deep-fried in hot oil.
To the smart cook of the 90s, deep frying in oil is a real no-no because of the increased fat content imported to the finished dish.
In the following method and recipe for this dish, not only is deep frying not necessary but fatty meats are excluded. Only the leanest chicken tenderloin (the small strip underneath the thicker chicken breast meat) is used.
