Poaching is a cooking technique that makes the most of a fresh bird. My motheir - and many other Chinese cooks - poach the bird whole, but while this is great for the breast - leaving it moist, with a silky texture, it means the leg meat is still pink, which many people find unpleasant.
To get around this, I remove the legs - thigh and drumstick - from the rest of the bird, and leave them to cook for a little longer in the poaching liquid. After the chicken is cooked, it's plunged into a bowl of iced water, which tightens the skin and firms up the meat (this only works for fresh birds). The poaching liquid can be reduced then used as a light chicken stock.
Kou shui ji is a Sichuan dish that translates to saliva chicken or mouth-watering chicken, because it's so delicious it gets your salivary glands going.
