Hainanese Chicken Rice

Hainanese Chicken Rice

My apologies for taking so long to post this recipe, but here it is finally. Hopefully you will enjoy cooking this simple yet delicious dish in the comfort of your kitchen. Hainanese chicken rice has its roots in the Hainan region of China. Immigrants from Hainan to South East Asia adapted the original version of this dish into the current version using the culinary preferences in the South East Asia region. In addition to Singapore, you can also find this dish in Malaysia as well as Thailand. - Ros

Level: Intermediate

Time: 1.5 hours

Servings: 4

Ingredients

- 8 pieces of chicken thighs

- 1 seedless cucumber (peeled and sliced)

- 4 inches of ginger (peeled and blended)

- 6 cloves of garlic (peeled and blended)

- 4 servings of jasmine rice

- Sweet soy sauce (kicap manis)

- Light soy sauce

- Garlic chili sauce

- Sesame oil

- 5 stalks of spring onion (cleaned and cut into 2 inch long pieces)

- 2 inches of garlic (peeled and sliced)

- Salt to taste

- Half a lime

- Sufficient ice to make an ice bath

Preparation

1. Clean the chicken, remove excess fat and skin

2. Place chicken in a pot

3. Place the sliced ginger in the pot

4. Place the spring onion in the pot

5. Pour water to cover chicken completely, with 2 inch excess

6. Cook over high heat for 10mins, continuously removing the residue at the surface of the pot.

7. Season generously with salt to taste. This is the soup that will be used for the dish, so season to taste.

8. After 10mins, reduce heat to medium and cook for another 20-30minutes until chicken cooks completely.

9. When the chicken cooks, remove the chicken from the pot and soak the cooked chicken thighs in an ice bath for about 5minutes. The objective of the ice bath is to give the chicken a delicious texture.

10. After the ice bath, drain the chicken and soak away excess water. 

11. Debone the chicken, and slice it sideways into strips of about 0.5inch thick. Pour soy sauce and sesame oil over the chicken. Set aside.

12. Dispose the ginger and the spring onion from the chicken broth. Set chicken broth aside.

13. In a separate wok, fry the blended ginger and garlic in a dash of olive oil. Remove when fragrant.

14. Clean the jasmine rice and remove excess water.

15. Pour 1 tbsp of olive oil in the wok. Put all but 2 tbsp of the fried garlic and ginger mix in the wok. Then pour in the cleaned jasmine rice. 

16. Fry all ingredients together in the wok for approximately 2-3 minutes. You will be rewarded with a wonderful fragrance from the wok at this stage. :)

17. When ready, cook the rice, garlic and ginger mixture in a rice pot, using the chicken broth from earlier. Use sufficient broth to cook 4 servings of rice - use the standard rice cooker water levels.

18. Next the sauce. There are 3 sauces that accompany the dish. The sweet sauce can be purchased readymade from an Asian supermarket. The chili garlic sauce can be cooked from scratch (as is practice in my mom's kitchen), but for simplicity, we can use the ones readymade from the Asian supermarket.

19. The only sauce that needs preparation is the garlic, ginger sauce. Use the 2 tbsp of the fried garlic and ginger mix that we set aside from Step 16 above. Add 2 tbsp of chicken broth, a pinch of salt and a small squeeze of fresh lime to the garlic and ginger mix.

20. Finally, we assemble the parts together:

21. The final serving will be something like this: sliced cucumber (cool and refreshing from the fridge), the room temperature chicken, the pipping hot chicken broth and 3 dipping sauces.

22. Each bite should consist of rice, chicken, a dash of each of the 3 sauces. You will see how the wonderful fragrance of the chicken rice mixes with the sweet soy sauce, the tangy garlic and ginger sauce and the spicy chili sauce. So many flavors in each mouthfull.
23. A bite of cucumber serves to clean your palate between each mouthful of rice.
24. It is a lot of work, but it is definitely worth it. You will understand why this dish is the unofficial national dish of my country.


Good luck and enjoy! :)