Chicken is safe and delicious

Coconut water replaces the water in the stock base in coconut chicken hotpot. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Diners are easily scared, and rightly cautious when it comes to food safety. The recent avian flu sent orders for chicken plummeting, but this popular meat is getting ready to bounce back. Ye Jun reports.

As long as chicken is properly cooked, there is no need to worry about getting sick from it. This sacred rule applies to all meat, but, the knee-jerk reaction from diners during the outbreak of avian flu in some Chinese poultry farms had restaurateurs worried, and they decided to band together for a public relations exercise.

Representatives from more than 30 restaurants in Beijing gathered at Tianyuan Chicken Hotpot Restaurant recently to host a "100-chicken banquet" as part of efforts to bring back the birds to the table.

The secret, they said, was to prepare and cook the birds well.

Huang Geng, general manager of Huangjihuang, another hotpot restaurant, was among the main minds behind this effort and showcased his signature braised chicken wing hotpot. He says the restaurants decided to come together to show that there is no danger in eating chicken.

"Avian flu is not fearsome, the lack of knowledge is," he says.

A virus is killed when the meat is cooked in boiling water for three minutes, and as long as the meat is well cooked, there is never a problem.

At Beijing Peng's Restaurant, the owners of the 6-month-old eatery have introduced a novel new dish to Beijing, a chicken hotpot with coconut which is very popular in Guangdong in the south of the country. Coconut water replaces the water in the stock base.