Taiwan Sesame Oil Chicken Festival cooks up a feast

A chef yesterday makes sesame oil chicken soup in front of the Red Playhouse in Ximending, Taipei, during a sesame oil chicken cooking competition organized by the Poultry Association of the Republic of China to promote the Taiwan MayoG Festival. PHOTO: CNA

A thousand sesame oil chicken connoisseurs enjoyed free bowls of gastronomical goodness at the first annual Taiwan Sesame Oil Chicken Festival in Taipei yesterday, sponsored by the Poultry Association.

The soup is a dish traditionally made for women who have just given birth to quickly replenish their lost energy, however association chairman Chen Mu-shi (陳木獅) said that a modernized and less greasy dish could be placed on the tables of health-conscious diners.

“Taiwanese free-range chicken is excellent in quality and high in nutritional value, full of good unsaturated fatty acid,” he said.

The event was the culmination of a three-month “best bowl of sesame oil soup in town” online poll held by the Council of Agriculture, in which 15 finalists battled it out live at Taipei’s Ximending (西門町) for the title of Sesame Oil Chicken Champion.

After an afternoon of stir-frying, simmering and offering free samples, Chen Ming-chun (陳鳴鈞), owner of Chu-lin Sesame Chicken on Chilin Road in Taipei, eventually took home the honors.

Chen, who took over the 30-year-old store from his mother, showed off his culinary skills alongside the original sesame oil chicken master, his mum.

The mother and son told the Taipei Times that their “dream sesame oil chicken” recipe, which conquered hundreds of picky stomachs yesterday, was a combination of the best of ingredients and a “secret recipe” chicken stock that was layered and complex in taste.

Chen browned high quality, aged ginger with sesame oil from Yunlin’s Peikang Township (北港), and stir-fried the drumsticks of 100-day-old free-range chickens from Hualien and Taitung.

“Simmer for 12 hours with our specialty stock and voila, you have your sesame oil chicken,” Chen said.

The Chu-lin store was also the recipient of the second-highest number of votes in the poll.

A-hung Sesame Oil Chicken at the Shuang-cheng (雙城) Night Market in Taipei bagged 20,137 votes and went home with the runner-up trophy in the cooking battle.