Jinfeng Braised Chicken

Jinfeng braised chicken took shape around 1908 on Daqiao Street in Shijiazhuang, where the Hui couple Ma Hongchang ran the Ma family chicken shop (signboard "Hongxuli"), adapting the braised-chicken craft of nearby Baoding. After the 1956 joint public-private merger it passed to the city food company, was revived in 1983 and named "Jinfeng," and is now produced by Shijiazhuang Losangeqi Food Co. after more than a century.

Jinfeng braised chicken is the acknowledged emblem of Shijiazhuang cuisine, distinguished by a honey glaze fried onto the bird before slow cooking in a secret herbal master broth; the meat comes out amber-red, tender to the bone and fragrant without heaviness, the first taste through which visitors come to know the city.

Its craft is distinctive: healthy free-range chickens are first coated in honey, deep-fried to a golden set colour, then gently simmered in a master broth built from dozens of Chinese herbs that is renewed day after day, drawing the herbal fragrance deep into the flesh. That aged broth, kept alive over time, is the foundation of the flavour, joining Hui braising skill with a herbal-diet tradition.

Jinfeng is a Chinese time-honoured brand recognised by the Ministry of Commerce.