Hainan Chicken Rice

Here is a dish I cook about twice a month. There is not that much work involved, but does consume a fair bit of time because of the lengthy cooking process of the chicken, hence there is a lot of waiting around. It is certainly not a dish you can do after a long day at work and you want to cook a quick dinner. Even here, I have taken some short cuts because of time constraints.





To start with, the raw ingredients here are simple.. chicken, ginger, garlic and spring onions.



Bring them all to boil, then I add the chicken. If I had more time, I'd fry the ginger and garlic first and include the oil in the pot.



After 1 minute, including time to turn the chicken over as I did not have enough water so submerge the whole chicken (why? .. I'll explain later), the chicken has now gone white and I quickly put it under cold water to tighten up the skin.



Then I boil it again in the same pot.



After 15 mins, I turn off heat and leave it for another 30 mins. Then I give it another cold water bath!



Now, I lay it aside to dry. I ensure I keep it suspended in the air so that the whole surface dries. Some people may prefer to use a hook and hang it up.



Now, I boil down the stock. Earlier, I said I did not have enough water to submerge the whole chicken. That is because, the more water I use, the longer it takes to boil the stock down and I did not have the time. I also add a bit of Knorr's chicken stock here for additional flavour. Of course, I add salt, sugar and pepper to taste as well.



With the stock ready, I add it to my rice, with a blade of screwpine (pandan) leaf.



When the chicken is dry, I rub it with sesame oil, then chop it the Chinese way. The sauce is a mixture of sugar, stock, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper and spring onions





The first pic of this blog showed the dry version of the dish. I prefer mine soaked with sauce like this!!