Heat & Cooking Methods
White Cut / Bai Zhan
Also: 白斩鸡, bai zhan ji, white-cut chicken, silk chicken
A Cantonese technique of poaching whole poultry at a bare simmer then cooling the bird in its own broth or an ice bath, yielding silky flesh and jelly-slicked skin.
/bye-JAHN/Cantonese; 白斩 (bái zhǎn) literally 'white cut' — white for the pale unadorned skin, cut for the chopping of the cold bird through the bone
Definition
White cut (白斩, bái zhǎn) is the canonical Cantonese method for cooking whole chicken, duck, or other poultry without browning or seasoning beyond the poaching liquid. The bird is submerged in water or a light aromatic broth brought to a full boil, then the heat is cut and the pot is covered. The poultry gently coasts through successive temperature drops — typically three cycles of bringing to the boil then resting off-heat — rather than boiling aggressively. This controlled descent through the danger zone preserves collagen in the skin as gelatin rather than rendering it out, yielding the characteristic slippery, glass-smooth skin and barely-set breast meat that distinguishes the technique. Once the thigh bone reads around 70–75 °C at the joint (but the flesh remains just-cooked), the bird is plunged into an ice bath to halt carryover cooking and contract the skin. Resting in the chilled cooking liquor is an alternative that trades some snap for richer flavor absorption. The bird is then dry-chilled, chopped through the bone into small bite-size pieces, and served at room temperature with a dipping sauce — classically ginger-scallion oil or minced ginger with oil and salt. The technique deliberately avoids browning, spicing, or saucing the bird itself; quality of the poultry and precision of the temperature control are fully exposed.
In use
“She gave the bird its third boil-and-rest cycle, then lowered it into the ice bath — the white-cut method demanding patience but delivering that glossy, jelly-skinned finish no roasting can replicate.”
See also
- TechniquePoaching
- TechniqueBlanching
- CuisineCantonese
Related terms
References
- 1.The Food of China — E.N. Anderson
- 2.Land of Plenty — Fuchsia Dunlop
- 3.The Wok: Recipes and Techniques — J. Kenji López-Alt
- 4.Chinese Cooking Demystified (culinary reference channel)
Confidence: high
Notes
Why three boil-rest cycles?
Each rest cycle allows heat to migrate inward without the vigorous convection of a full boil, which would tighten the proteins and expel juices. Three cycles tune the internal temperature trajectory so the breast arrives at doneness just as the thigh joint loses its pink — a window that aggressive boiling collapses.
The ice-bath shock
Plunging the bird into ice water immediately after poaching does two things: it halts carryover cooking with surgical precision, and it causes the skin to contract rapidly, pulling tight against the flesh and creating the taut, glossy, gelatin-rich surface that is the visual signature of a well-executed white-cut bird.
Breed matters enormously
Authentic versions use free-range or village chickens (走地鸡, zǒudì jī) with firmer flesh, thinner skin, and higher collagen content than fast-grown commercial broilers. The technique exposes breed differences completely — a supermarket bird will taste pallid and watery by comparison.