Glancing through Melissa Clark's "A Good Appetite" column in the New York Times Dining & Wine section a few weeks ago, I chanced on a phrase that triggered pure bliss in my Pavlovian memory centers. The magic words were "steamed chicken," and Clark's recipe sounded as if it could be quite good -- only not in the least like my steamed chicken.

The Clark version is Japanese in inspiration and calls for putting sake and water in the bottom of a stockpot, setting a chicken in the pot in one of those collapsible vegetable steamer baskets and letting it cook in the steam of the simmering sake mixture for 1 to 1½ hours. You then serve it with a citrusy Asian-accented sauce.

Mine, on the other hand, originated 20-plus years ago when I screwed up what was supposed to be a recipe for Sichuan-style crunchy chicken in Irene Kuo's "The Key to Chinese Cooking." The idea is to steam a whole chicken over plain water before it's drained, blotted dry, dusted with flour and deep-fried. Running out of time for anything beyond Step One, I brazenly served the steamed chicken with a dipping sauce of Chinkiang vinegar and slivered ginger. Like Clark, I was amazed at the succulence of both light and dark meat -- and also at how wonderful the unappetizing-looking skin turned out to be. And there was a payoff I hadn't expected. With this particular steaming method the chicken sits in a shallow dish, positioned well above the hot water, that can hold the juices given off in cooking. I ended up with about two cups of savory liquid better than any imaginable chicken consomme.

I've been steaming chicken ever since. I still love it best with Chinese seasonings (things like scallion, ginger, five-spice powder, and Shaoxing wine or sherry). But to my surprise and delight, it turned out to be equally good with completely different trappings like a bit of preserved lemon and some sort of North African spices, or plain old leeks and carrots and garlic. Of course, every choice will yield a differently flavored "consomme," which you can use in making a sauce to go with the chicken or freeze for some later purpose.

Here is my favorite version, still close to the original accident:

The necessary equipment is perfectly simple, but you must get all items lined up and make sure everything fits BEFORE you hit some Murphy's-law moment.

First priority is a large, deep steaming vessel; I use a 12-quart Dutch oven. The lid must fit tightly, and the pot must be deep enough to hold everything else. "Everything else" means a chicken, a heat-proof dish like a 9-inch Pyrex pie plate to place it in and a rack to support the dish above boiling water. The rack can be a couple of small cans with tops and bottoms removed. But I really recommend looking in Chinese stores for an inexpensive chromed steel rack about 2 to 2½ inches high. It's a secure perch, and will allow you to start with an ample amount of boiling water that won't have to be cumbersomely replenished every 10 minutes.

You will also need a bulb baster, something to rest it on, a heat-proof bowl or measuring cup able to hold a pint or so of steaming juices and potholders or (preferably) kitchen mitts.

Chinese-Style Steamed Chicken

Ingredients

2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
½ teaspoon five-spice powder
1 to 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 (3½-pound) whole chicken
3 to 4 scallions, cleaned and trimmed
A chunk of ginger about ½ inch long, peeled

Directions

1. Put the salt and Sichuan peppercorns in a small heavy skillet and dry-roast them over low heat, shaking the pan until the salt is just slightly darkened, about 5 minutes. Grind to a coarse powder using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle; mix with the five-spice powder in a small bowl.
2. Rub the wine all over the chicken, inside and out. Do the same with the spice mixture. Put the chicken in a bowl and let marinate overnight (or for at least 4 hours) in the refrigerator, tightly covered.
3. Drain and discard any juices that have run off. You can wipe off the spice mixture before proceeding, but I usually don't. Cut the scallions into three or four pieces each; cut the ginger into two or three slices. Lightly bash the scallions and ginger with the end of a cleaver handle or the side of a heavy knife blade and put both into the cavity. Set the chicken in a shallow heatproof dish, preferably a 9-inch Pyrex pie plate.
4. Position the rack in the steaming pot, add water to come just below the top of the rack, and bring to a boil over high heat. Carefully place the chicken on the rack. Cover the pot tightly and turn down the heat to medium.
5. After 20 minutes, start checking the contents of the pot, always being sure to tilt the lid away from your face. When you see that juices are starting to collect, siphon them off with the bulb baster into the heatproof dish. At this point you can reduce the heat to medium-low. Continue drawing off the steaming juices at 10- to 15-minute intervals; each time, check the water level and carefully pour in more boiling water if you see that the pan bottom is getting dry.
6. The total cooking time will be between 1½ and 2 hours, and you will know that the chicken is done when the accumulation of juices slows down.
7. Carefully lift out the dish with the chicken. Serve it at once, very hot, while the skin and slightly gristly bits are still tender and delicious. (They'll never taste as good again.) Don't try to do a neat carving job; just separate the main wing and leg joints, loosen the breast from the breastbone, and let people have at the bones with fingers and the rest with chopsticks.
8. Plain steamed rice is the best accompaniment. I like to serve a simple dipping sauce made from 3 tablespoons Chinkiang black vinegar or Chinese red vinegar with finely slivered or minced fresh ginger. You can try further touches like a little soy sauce, a slug of hot chili oil or sesame oil, a little sugar and slivered or minced scallions. A few tablespoons of the steaming juices are a great addition, but I'd quickly bring them to a boil before using them.
9. Those precious juices, by the way, are great for cooking rice. Or save up a few batches in the freezer until you have 6 to 8 cups, and turn them into a rich, all-but-effortless soup with cellophane noodles and slivers of chicken meat.

Anne Mendelson is a freelance writer and culinary historian who has written for various newspapers and magazines. She is the author of "Stand Facing the Stove" (a biography of the authors of "The Joy of Cooking"; Holt, 1996) and "Milk" (Knopf, 2008). The past recipient of honors including a fellowship at the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library and the Oxford Symposium's Sophie Coe Prize in Food History, she is currently working on a book about Chinese food in America with the assistance of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Photo: A whole chicken. Credit: istockphoto.com / Lauri Patterson

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