I Love Hainanese Chicken Rice–Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南鸡饭）

INTRODUCTION

Updated on 20-9-2014 : The post was updated with the chilli sauce recipe. Please scroll down towards the end of chilli sauce recipe.

This is one of my most satisfied posts and it went unnoticed because of the inexperience picture taking and poor formatting when I just started my blogs. I have decided to add in new pictures for this post. The post was originally written for Mother’s day 2013. However, it is equally applicable to any occasion.

 Poached Chicken

Rice flavoured with chicken broth

Some green vegetables to go with the rice

Some soup from the chicken stock

Condiments required (for chilli sauce, please scroll down towards the end for recipe)

 

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ORIGINAL POST (11 May 2013) –

WHY NOT COOK YOUR MOTHER A MEAL OF CHICKEN RICE THIS COMING MOTHER’S DAY?

 

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Hainanese chicken rice is a dish of Chinese origin, and is most commonly associated with Hainanese, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisines, although it is also commonly sold in Thailand. It is based on the well-known Hainanese dish called Wenchang chicken (文昌雞), due to its roots in Hainan cuisine and its adoption by the Hainanese overseas Chinese population in the Nanyang area (present-day Southeast Asia). Hainanese chicken also appears as a specialty in Vietnamese cuisine. Mother’s day is approaching and it would be a bad idea to prepare some dishes for her and why not consider Chicken Rice. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainanese_chicken_rice)

As explained above, chicken rice is a common household dish and hawker’s saleable item. It is welcomed by population of all age groups in Singapore and Malaysia, be it children, teens or adults and all levels from workers to top executives. Singapore is famous for its chicken rice (actually, I am not sure about the reasons behind this since places like Ipoh, Malaysia are also famous for their chicken rice) and is deemed to be a “national dish”. It is also one of the items served by Singapore Airlines for its business class and first class customers.

My kids loved chicken rice and I decided to cook chicken rice yesterday since they have been mentioning it for quite a while. In fact, they are having chicken rice at least one to twice a week at the school canteen.

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IS CHICKEN RICE DIFFICULT TO PREPARE? – Simplified version of chicken rice preparation

Chicken rice is basically “chicken” plus “rice”. If you are not fussy and able to forgo a lot of minute details in the dish preparations, you will score may be a pass in your preparation.

If I am not having meals at home, my mother in law can cook a pot of chicken rice serving the whole family (2 adults and 2 kids; 2 women, 1 girl, 1 boy) with just two drumsticks. This was how she did it. She cleaned the drumsticks; mixed the uncooked rice with a few spoons of chicken rice sauces sold in the supermarket; added a few sticks of pandan leaves; put it in the rice cooker; put the drumstick on top of the rice and on the rice cooker. This is a super quick way to cook, my mother in law was using the steam generated from cooking the rice to cook the chicken and let the juices dripped into the rice. It took her only 20 minutes to cook. There was no complains from her daughters and grand children as the three females family members don’t really like to consume meat. They just want “chicken-rice flavoured white rice”  and they are more than happy to give all the drumsticks to my son. HOW BRILLIANT IS MY MOTHER IN LAW!

However, if you and your family members are food critics, then you may take a while for you to prepare an entire dish until the level acceptable by the foodie. The next question would logically be what differentiates a plate of delicious chicken rice from the “yucky” one.

 

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD PLATE OF CHICKEN RICE ?

Usually, chicken rice was assessed based on the following criteria:

RICE
Fragrance	Should emit a nice aroma which basically is a mixture of fragrances from pandan leaves, gingers and garlics
Texture	The rice should be soft but still maintain the original grain shape. It should not be soggy (meaning too much water added) and greasy.
Colour	Colour should be slightly yellowish that and not plain white. Yellowish colour make the rice looks more presentable and appetizing.
CHICKEN
Texture	Should be soft and juicy. Therefore, simmering/poaching of chicken is one of the critical processes in this dish preparation.
Appearance	A bit glazy, skin should not be broken. However, most household will throw away the skin and debone the chicken before serving it.
Fragrance	As original as possible
CONDIMENTS
Chilli sauce	Beside spicy, chilli sauce must also have the fragrance of sesame oil, ginger, garlic and lime.
Special made soya sauce	The soya sauce should be thick and slightly sweet
Ginger sauce	Gingers were freshly ground and overall sauce must be tasty enough

Before I proceed, I have to caution that my recipe is the healthy version but the outputs resemble those chicken rice sold in hawker centres or posh hotels or restaurants. You got the hint?   If you found my ingredients are not that healthy, just substitute with what you usually use. Of course, not  the chicken and rice!!! I will justify the usage of my ingredients.

 

PREPARATION PROCESS

Getting Ready….

• One medium sized chicken.  – When you buy the chicken, you have to ensure that you have a pot big enough to submerge the whole chicken. I have used a smaller chicken because I only have 4 persons for the meals.  For your reference, I have paid SGD 4.80 for chicken, therefore, it is rather small. I do not recommend to use frozen chicken as the taste would not be the same.

• Additional chicken feet for preparation of chicken stock (may be SGD 1 for 10 chicken feet) and keep the chicken fats for frying the garlics and gingers.

• One cube of ready made chicken stock (optional).

• Lots of garlics, gingers and bits of fresh turmeric (optional).

 

• 2 bundles of pandan leaves. It is definitely recommended if you are in Malaysia and Singapore but if you cannot get it in your countries, you can go without it but use more gingers and garlics instead.

• Some coriander leaves, tomatoes and cucumbers for garnishing.

• Light soya sauce, thick dark soya sauce, cooking oil, sesame oil for condiments. If you can’t get the thick dark soya sauce, you can use the normal dark soya sauce and add in some rock sugar

 

 

Preparing the ingredients…. 

 

• Pound the garlics and gingers as fine as possible. Add in a bit of tumeric if desired. Set aside of future use.Note that I have included a small slices of tumeric for the purpose of colour the rice. Tumeric is a good colouring agent and in fact, it blends quite well with ginger and garlic. You can see from the second picture that the pounded mixture is a big yellowish. But do not add too much until it covers up the fragrance of garlic and ginger.

• In a bowl, get ready some chicken stock cubes, dissolved in hot water and set aside for later use.This step is optional but I opt to do it because I need not to add a lot of condiments such as light soya sauce, salt etc. to the chicken rice later. Sliced some cucumbers and tomatoes and set aside for later use.

• Personally, I would think that a plate of chicken rice is incomplete without slices of cucumber in it. The role of cucumbers and tomatoes is to negate the greasiness of the rice and chickens since it is just “chicken plus rice” without any vegetables. Size and shape of cucumber are up to individual and here, I have sliced it into funny shapes for future garnishing. Tomatoes are optional but I love the colour and it blends well with the chicken rice.

 

Preparing the chicken ….

• Clean the chickens and pluck off any feathers and hairs found. Chop off the heads and legs. The legs can be used for preparing the chicken stocks. If any chicken fats were found, wash and keep these fats for future use. You may consider to use coarse sea salts to rub on the chicken skin such that you have a smooth polished chicken skin. I did not perform this step as I did not have any coarse salts with me.

• I have purposely bought some additional legs for the preparation of chicken stock as I found that one chicken is just not adequate to bring out the fragrance of the chicken rice.

• The garlics and gingers quantities in this picture were for reference only.

 

• Get ready a pot of water. Throw some garlics, gingers, pandan leaves and bring to boil on high heat.

• When the water is boiling , submerge the whole chicken into the water with its back facing up. Add in the chicken bones and feet. You can also consider to stuff the chicken with the garlics, pandan leaves and some spring onions before you poached the chicken.

• The reason letting the chicken having its back facing up is because chicken breast takes longer time to cook  and positioning chicken this way will ensure that breast are fully cooked.

• Lower heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes.

 

• After 30 minutes, get ready a big pot of cooked cold water (icy water preferred). Take the chicken out and put it in the cold water. Let it soak in the cold water for about 15 minutes. The most important reason for doing this is to preserve the meat juices in the chicken from drying out and prevent the skin from breaking.

Cooking the rice….. 

• Use some type of measuring cups (be it the cooking measuring cups or your rice cooker cups)  and  pour adequate quantities chicken stocks (from simmering/poaching  the chicken earlier) to the rice and ensure that it is just adequate to cover the rice. Add in the pounded ginger garlic paste and turmeric and stir until well mixed.

• Note: How much liquid (in this case chicken stock) is needed to cook the rice is very much depends on the types of rice you have. Some rice may need more water to cook than the others.

• On the rice cooker and when cooked, fluff rice gently with chopsticks (while loosening rice and avoid rice burnt at the bottom of the rice cooker. Leave at “keep warm” settings for about 10-15 minutes and a plate of chicken rice is ready.

Serving your chicken rice… 

• Get ready a bowl, add some light soya sauce, sesame oils, and a bit of leftover chicken stocks and mix well, set aside.

• Cut your chicken into parts, arrange on platter over a bed of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.

• Pour sesame soya sauce oil over the chicken and garnish with coriander leaves. In this picture, I have deboned the chicken and the whole plate of chicken are boneless

• In separate condiments bowls, serve chilli sauce, ginger sauce and thick soya sauce as dips.

• Serve with warm rice and some chicken soups. There should be some chicken stocks left after you used it to cook the rice. I just throw in some tomatoes, chye shim, and tofu to make some soups for my kids to eat along with the rice.

 

Here is the chicken rice and does it look appealing to you? Overall, I think I spent less than SGD 10 for the entire dish for a meal of 4. This price is not adequate for you to have a plate of chicken rice at a posh restaurants outlet. At a local food court, if we order one whole chicken plus four plates of rice, one plate of vegetables, plain chicken soup, you will need at least SGD 20 to have that.  We can’t really finished the meals and we still have half a pot of rice left and about one third of chicken left.

 

The “aftermaths”…..….CHICKEN PORRIDGE

I used the left over chicken “stock” from submerging the poached chicken in the ice water, throw the chicken rice, the meat into the water and boil for about 15 minutes. Add condiments and garnished with fried onion, coriander leaves and chopped onion and a bowl of chicken porridge is ready for breakfast.

 

WHY NOT COOK SOME CHICKEN RICE FOR YOUR MOTHER THIS MOTHER DAY? IF YOU CANNOT COOKED FOR HER, WHY NOT FORWARD THIS POST TO HER AND SAY.

“ MUMMY, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY,

Mom, You’ve cooked for me with love all this while and how I wish I could prepare this dish for you this Sunday to assure you that your kid have grown up and able to take care of themselves.  However, since I am not free to cook this Sunday,  why not we  have the most famous Chicken Rice  in Singapore  at the famous Mandar…. Hotel  in Orchard Road instead? Mom, I love you….. “  Just joking!!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL MOTHERS;

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY  WIFE – MY KID’S MOTHER ; AND

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY WIFE’S MOTHER – MY MOTHER IN LAW………

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UPDATED POST ON 20-9-2014

The post was updated with incorporation of some new pictures and preparation of chicken rice chilli recipe. This chicken rice recipe is the one we usually prepared at home and if this is served, no separate ginger sauce will be prepared. All quantities are estimated quantities for reference only. Feel free to change to your liking.

Ingredients

• 100 grams of ginger
• 100 grams of garlics
• 5 calamansi
• 50 grams of chilli.

Steps of preparation

• Squeeze the juice of the calamansi and keep the calamansi skin.
• In a food processor, blend the gingers and garlics until fine. Add calamansi skin and chilli, blend until as fine as possible.

• Transfer the blended mixture to a glass bottle. Add the calamansi juices, some white vinegar, salt, sesame oil, sugar, light soya sauce and chicken stock. Stir until well mix. Since this is a savoury sauce, feel free to adjust the quantities to your liking. Add more vinegar or calamansi juices when served in a small bowl.

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“Clay Pot (“?”) Chicken Rice?– Cooking “Clay Pot” Chicken Rice Using Rice Cooker

UPDATED POST ON 8-1-2015  – New image upload

 

INTRODUCTION

I have to say that this is not the authentic clay pot chicken rice recipe. It is prepared using conventional rice cooker and I have amended the method of cooking. However, I can assure  readers that the taste will not be compromised much.

I did not use clay pot to prepare this one pot rice dish for a few reasons. One is that I do not have a clay pot and secondly I do not have the patience and time to monitor cooking rice using clay pots. Thirdly, I believed that even if you use the clay pot but using gas stove to cook, the taste will not be very much different from if you cooked using the rice cooker. In order to have a distinct flavour as what were sold in the eating outlets, conventional stove using charcoal have to be used. Therefore I have opted to use the rice cooker to speed up the preparation.

CLAYPOT CHICKEN RICE DEFINED

As with other post, it is good to let Wikipedia to explain to the reader this unique dish:

“Clay pot chicken rice (Chinese: 砂煲鸡饭, 瓦煲鸡饭 or 煲仔鸡饭) is usually a dinner dish in the southern regions of China, Malaysia and Singapore. It is typically served with Chinese sausage and vegetables. More often than not, the rice is cooked in the clay pot first and cooked ingredients like diced chicken and Chinese sausage are added in later. Traditionally, the cooking is done over a charcoal stove, giving the dish a distinctive flavour. Some places serve it with dark soya sauce and also dried salted fish. Salted fish enhances the taste of the clay pot chicken rice, depending on the diner’s preference. Due to the time-consuming method of preparation and slow-cooking in a clay pot, customers might have to wait a period of time (typically 15-30 minutes) before the dish is served”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claypot_chicken_rice)

WHY THIS DISH

I first try this dish when I studied in Kuala Lumpur during the late 1980’s. What I can always remembered was the long timing I have to wait for any order of clay pot chicken rice. Being a student then, I did not have the patience to wait and ended up usually eating economy rice specially catered for the students.

When I get married, my wife is a firm supporter of clay pot chicken rice. Whenever there is a chance or when she saw there is a store that sells clay pot chicken rice, she would ordered the dish. However, there are not many clay pot chicken rice stalls in Singapore as compared to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

While I was thinking of what to cook yesterday, my kids were saying that they wanted to eat chicken rice to “break my vegetarian diet fast”! I told them that may be I should let them try another type of chicken rice, but is the darker version of clay pot chicken rice.

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WHAT IS NEEDED

Serves 4-6

• 3 –4 cups of uncooked rice (washed and set aside) – not in picture

• 500 grams of chicken drumstick meat or breast (cut into small pieces)

• 4 dried Chinese mushrooms (soaked and cut into thin strips)

• 3 shallots (cut into small pieces)

• 3 Chinese sausages (sliced into small pieces)

• Some spring onions – White portion – cut into small pieces and leave the green portion of later use

• 3 tablespoons of dark soya sauce

• 3 tablespoons of light soya sauce

• 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce

• 3 tablespoons of sesame oil

• 1 tablespoon of white pepper

• 1 tablespoon of corn flour (not in the picture)

• 30 grams of ginger

• 50 grams of salted fish (threadfin or ikan kurau preferred) – (optional)

• I piece of chicken stock cube

• Pinches of salt

• Pinches of sugar (optional)

• Some smoked pork belly (optional)

Note that smoked pork belly, chicken stock and salted fish are optional.

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

Marinating Chicken Meat

• Cut the chicken meat in thin slices. Chopped or shredded the ginger until very fine pieces. Put the chicken meat in a bowl and marinate with ginger, corn flour and HALF of seasonings marked . Marinate for at least 1-2 hours. The longer you marinate, the tastier the chicken meat will be.

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Deep Frying the Salted Fish (Optional)

• Tear the salted fish into small strips. Use medium heat to deep fry it until the salted fish become golden brown and crispy. Drain and put in a piece of oil absorbent paper. Set aside for later use.

Note that this step is optional. In this illustration, I have prepared a lot of salted fish for my other dishes. This salted fish was especially good to go with white porridges and fried rice.

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Shallow Frying the Chinese Sausage and Smoked Pork Belly

• In a frying pan, put a few tablespoons of cooking oils and stir fry the Chinese sausage for a few minutes under MEDIUM heat. Note that this step is also optional. As for me, I would think that this step will enhance the flavour of the Chinese sausages.

• Using high heat, use the same oil to stir fry the mushroom slices and chopped shallots plus spring onions until fragrant.

• At the meantime, wash your rice and dilute the chicken stock cube with some water and set aside.

• When the shallots and mushrooms are fragrant, add in the washed rice. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the REMAINING HALF of the seasonings marked  to the rice. Stir fry of 2-3 minutes until the rice are evenly coated with with the seasonings such as the oyster sauce and dark soya sauce.

• Add in chicken stock and 3-4 cups of water OR as per the rice cooking illustration in the rice packaging. As the rice had been soaked already, therefore, you may want to reduce the water slightly such that the rice will not be soggy. If you prefer, you can taste a bit of the uncooked rice and assess if there is a need to adjust the taste by adding additional condiments.

• Cook in the conventional rice cooker using the normal rice cooking function or if you are rushing for time, cook using the “Quick Cook” function.

• Open your rice cooker at about 2/3 of the rice cooking cycle, or check if there are bubbles in the rice and water has started to reduce.

• When the rice is about 2/3 cooked, put in 1 tablespoon of deep fried salted fish (optional), green portion of the spring onion, chicken strips and Chinese sausages on top of the half cooked rice. Continue cooking until the rice cooker indicates that the rice is cooked. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving.

Note that every rice cooker is different. You have to occasionally open the rice cooker to check the progress of the cooking. For example, if your rice cooker’s rice cooking function is 30 minutes per cycle, you can check the rice cooker at say 20 minutes after you started the cooking. When the rice cooker function is off, the steam will continue to cook the chicken meat and therefore, served only 10-15 minutes later.

• Best serve hot and garnish with additional spring onions or coriander leaves. If you preferred, you can put some deep fried salted fish or shallots on top of your rice. It goes well with freshly cut chilli dip in dark soya sauce.

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CONCLUSION

This simpler way of cooking have cut short the cooking time by at least one hour as compared to the traditional cooking method using charcoal stove and clay pot with minimal compromise to the taste.  In addition, it is easier to control the texture of the rice .

I have pre-seasoned the rice before it is cooked and unlike traditional method, some dark soya sauce was poured on top of the white rice resulting in uneven distribution of spices and soya sauces in the cooked rice. Depending on your taste buds, salted fish or even Chinese sausages are optional. The must haves in this rice dish are the chicken, ginger, sesame oil, oyster sauce and dark soya sauce. With these minimal ingredients, you can produce an equally satisfactory “clay pot” chicken rice.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.  

 

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• For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 26 November 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts. Also follow me at INSTAGRAM or TSU, a new social network for some more personal sharing other than recipes.

• You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP  to see more recipes. Currently there are about 21,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can  post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.

• If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

 

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What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 25-7-2013

On 25-7-2013, Chicken rice served with sweet kernel corn and mushroom soup.

As I have not cook chicken rice for quite a while, I have decided just to have a one dish dinner – Hainanese Chicken Rice. You can refer here for my detailed write up on the preparation of Chicken rice. Alternatively, you can refer to Guaishushu’s Facebook page for simple pictorial instructions.

If you really observe the first picture, do you realize something are missing? Yes, two things were missing!  A very important garnish vegetables, cucumber slice. I always find that without cucumber slice, the whole chicken rice is missing something. Do you agree with me?

Secondly, there is a lack of green vegetable today. Usually, I would have a plate of blanched vegetable to go with it but because today is Friday, I have finished all the green vegetables in the fridge, Haha. I have said before in my earlier post, usually Sunday to Tuesday or Wednesday are leafy green vegetables and Thursday to Saturday are usually beans, melons or roots type of vegetables because it can be kept longer. We do marketing once a week and I am a rational cooker, I cooked based on First In First Out principle… I don’t usually cook impulsively..

 

As I have additional chicken stock from simmering the chicken, I have decided to open a canned kernel corn and turned it into a corn soup. When I made the cake yesterday, I have some egg whites left and I just stir and “throw” inside the soup. It become a simple soup like the one you have in the chicken rice store.

Usually, when I cooked chicken rice, I will cook more than what is required. The rationale is that it take some efforts to prepare chicken rice, why not prepare some more. In addition, any left over chicken rice can be “recycled” and is a top choice for fried rice. Since it is already “marinated” rice and you need not to add much condiments and oil when you fried it.

Other than frying overnight chicken rice, we used to make it into chicken porridge for next day’s breakfast. After simmering the chicken, if you still have the chicken stock left, just keep it. In the next morning, just throw in the left over chicken rice, any chicken meat left (of course de-boned and possibly shredded into floss), add in a bit of condiments, it will become a bowl of chicken porridge.

Will it harm you to eat overnight food?  I do not want to think about it and as long as it is properly kept with no possibility of contamination, it should be ok. How about how grandparents or parents? Is it not the Westerners used to heat up frozen foods that were prepared well in advance?

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Other than the above, the project of the day included the following:

 

Impromptu Ixora Birthday “Cup Cake”

Preparing an impromptu birthday cake for one of my internet friends who “requested” me to “bake” a birthday cake for her and wish her happy birthday over the internet. This cake is decorated with ixora flowers which is abundant in Malaysia and Singapore.. Do you mind if someone posted this cake to your timeline wishing you happy birthday?

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Butterfly Cupcake

This is an extremely simple cup cake recipe. Add all ingredients and mixed well, bake and you get the cake. It was served with cream and strawberry jam as the basic cup cake have very little sugar. it was dusted with sugar powder. Do you think it will taste nice?

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Rose Cake

This should be a celebration cake but need further modifications. I am doing  in a rush and therefore  the workmanship is really terrible. Haha.

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Modified Version of Raas Malai

This is a dessert originated from India and an extremely popular in South Asia. It was served in wedding ceremony and other important festival occasions. Traditionally, the raw ingredients are paneer (Indian Cheese) and milk. The recipe is adopted from http://free-advertising-ey.blogspot.it/2013/07/raas-malai-sweet-from-bangladesh.htmlk with some modifications to suit the Chinese taste buds. Modifications include reducing the use of spices such as cinnamon, cardamon and etc.. In addition, strawberry were added.

 
As this dessert look milky and cheesy, I have decided to let my kids try out the dessert exposing them to more international cuisines. The preparation are rather coincidence. This afternoon when I have over whipped my cream, I thought I might as well used this over whipped cream to make the dessert. I added fresh milk to the over whipped cream and heat until it boiled. Knowing that my kids will not really like spices like cardamon, cinnamon , I have decided to tailor it to a more Chinese taste buds. I meshed 5 ripe strawberries and add to the milk and let them boiled together with the milk.

As for the cheese balls, I have used mozarella cheese to make it instead of paneer or cheddar cheese. I meshed 2 strawberries, added to the cheese, added 1 tablespoon of water and shaped it into small balls. My balls are rather small compared to the authentic because I know my kids wouldn’t be able to take such a big cheesy ball.  I dropped the balls to the cool milk and put in the fridge. During serving, I found it too creamy (possibly due to my over whipped cream), I have further diluted with cold fresh milk and cut slices of fresh strawberry to go with it.

 

Verdict: Extremely nice sweet milky soup with strawberry flavour. As long as you like milk, I do not think you have any reasons not to like it.

As for the cheese balls, my girls can take all but my boys feels a bit too rich and salty to him. As for me, I loved the cold milk but for the cheese balls, one or two should be Ok but not too much as when I was young, Chinese were not exposed to ” cheesy things”…. Haha.. I will say those who like cheese, go ahead and make this milky desserts.. It is just delicious.
 

LASTLY, HOPE YOU LIKE THE POST TODAY!  AND HAVE A NICE WEEK END.

Why Not Cook Your Mother A Meal Of Chicken Rice This Coming Mother’s Day?

Hainanese chicken rice is a dish of Chinese origin, and is most commonly associated with Hainanese, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisines, although it is also commonly sold in Thailand. It is based on the well-known Hainanese dish called Wenchang chicken (文昌雞), due to its roots in Hainan cuisine and its adoption by the Hainanese overseas Chinese population in the Nanyang area (present-day Southeast Asia). Hainanese chicken also appears as a specialty in Vietnamese cuisine. Mother’s day is approaching and it would be a bad idea to prepare some dishes for her and why not consider Chicken Rice. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainanese_chicken_rice)

As explained above, chicken rice is a common household dish and hawker’s saleable item. It is welcomed by population of all age groups in Singapore and Malaysia, be it children, teens or adults and all levels from workers to top executives. Singapore is famous for its chicken rice (actually, I am not sure about the reasons behind this since places like Ipoh, Malaysia are also famous for their chicken rice) and is deemed to be a “national dish”. It is also one of the items served by Singapore Airlines for its business class and first class customers.

My kids loved chicken rice and I decided to cook chicken rice yesterday since they have been mentioning it for quite a while. In fact, they are having chicken rice at least one to twice a week at the school canteen.

IS CHICKEN RICE DIFFICULT TO PREPARE? – Simplified version of chicken rice preparation

Chicken rice is basically “chicken” plus “rice”. If you are not fussy and able to forgo a lot of minute details in the dish preparations, you will score possibly a pass in your preparation.

If I am not having meals at home, my mother in law can cook a pot of chicken rice serving our family (2 adults and 2 kids; 2 women, 1 girl, 1 boy) with just two drumsticks. This was how she did it. She cleaned the drumsticks; mixed the uncooked rice with a few spoons of chicken rice sauces sold in the supermarket; added a few sticks of pandan leaves; put it in the rice cooker; put the drumstick on top of the rice and in the rice cooker. This is a super quick way to cook, my mother in law was using the steam generated from cooking the rice to cook the chicken and let the juices drip into the rice. It took her only 20 minutes to cook. There was no complaint from her daughters and grandchildren as the three women family members don’t really like to consume meat. They just want “chicken-rice flavored white rice”  and they are more than happy to give all the drumsticks to my son. HOW BRILLIANT IS MY MOTHER IN LAW!

However, if you and your family members are food critics, then you may take a while for you to prepare an entire dish until the level acceptable by the foodies. The next question would logically be what differentiates a plate of delicious chicken rice from the “yucky” one.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD PLATE OF CHICKEN RICE ?

Usually, the chicken rice was assessed based on the following criteria:

RICE
Fragrance	Should emit a nice aroma which basically is a mixture of fragrances from pandan leaves, ginger and garlic
Texture	The rice should be soft but still maintain the original grain shape. It should not be soggy (meaning too much water added) and greasy.
Color	Color should be slightly yellowish that and not plain white. Yellowish color makes the rice looks more presentable and appetizing.
CHICKEN
Texture	Should be soft and juicy. Therefore, simmering/poaching of chicken is one of the critical processes in this dish preparation.
Appearance	A bit glazy, skin should not be broken. However, most households will throw away the skin and de-bone the chicken before serving it.
Fragrance	As original as possible
CONDIMENTS
Chili sauce	Beside spicy, chili sauce must also have the fragrance of sesame oil, ginger, garlic and lime.
Specially made soya sauce	The soya sauce should be thick and slightly sweet
Ginger sauce	Gingers were freshly ground and overall sauce must be tasty enough

Before I go ahead, I have to caution that my recipe is the healthy version but the outputs resemble those chicken rice sold in hawker centers or posh hotels or restaurants. You got the hint?   If you found my ingredients are not that healthy, just substitute with what you usually use. Of course, not  the chicken and rice!!! I will justify the usage of my ingredients.

PREPARATION PROCESS

Getting Ready….
	One medium sized chicken. When you buy the chicken, you have to make sure that you have a pot big enough to submerge the whole chicken. I have used a smaller chicken because I only have 4 persons for the meals.  For your reference, I have paid SGD 4.80 for chicken, therefore, it is rather small. I do not recommend to use frozen chicken as the taste would not be the same. Additional chicken feet in preparation of chicken stock (may be SGD 1 for 10 chicken feet) and keep the chicken fats for frying the garlics and gingers. One cube of ready made chicken stock (optional). Lots of garlics, gingers and bits of fresh tumeric (optional).
	2 bundles of pandan leaves. It is definitely recommended if you are in Malaysia and Singapore but if you cannot get it in your countries, you can go without it but use more gingers and garlics instead. Some coriander leaves, tomatoes and cucumbers for garnishing. Light soya sauce, thick dark soya sauce, cooking oil, sesame oil for condiments. If you can’t get the thick dark soya sauce, you can use the normal dark soya sauce and add in some rock sugar
Preparing the ingredients….
	Pound the garlics and gingers as fine as possible. Add in a bit of tumeric if desired. Set aside for future use. Note that I have included a small slice of tumeric for the purpose of color the rice. Tumeric is a good coloring agent and in fact, it blends quite well with ginger and garlic. You can see from the second picture that the pounded mixture is a big yellowish. But do not add too much until it covers up the fragrance of garlic and ginger. In a bowl, get ready some chicken stock cubes, dissolved in hot water and set aside for later use.This step is optional but I opt to do it because I need not to add a lot of condiments such as light soya sauce, salt etc. to the chicken rice later. Sliced some cucumbers and tomatoes and set aside for later use. Personally, I would think that a plate of chicken rice is incomplete without slices of cucumber in it. The role of cucumbers and tomatoes is to negate the greasiness of the rice and chickens since it is just “chicken plus rice” without any vegetables. Size and shape of cucumber is up to individual and here, I have slice it into funny shapes for future garnishing. Tomatoes are optional but I love the color and it blends well with the chicken rice.
Preparing the chicken ….
	Clean the chickens and pluck off any feathers and hairs found. Chop off the heads and legs. The legs can be used for preparing the chicken stocks. If any chicken fats were found, wash and keep these fats for future use. You may consider to use coarse sea salts to rub on the chicken skin such that you have a smooth polished chicken skin. I did not perform this step as I did not have any coarse salts with me. I have purposely bought some additional legs for the preparation of chicken stock as I found that one chicken is just not adequate to bring out the fragrance of the chicken rice. The garlics and gingers quantities in this picture were for reference only.
	Get ready a pot of water. Throw some garlics, gingers, pandan leaves and bring to boil on high heat. When the water is boiling , submerge the whole chicken into the water with its back facing up. Add in the chicken bones and feet. You can also consider to stuff the chicken with the garlic, pandan leaves and some spring onions before you poached the chicken. The reason letting the chicken having its back facing up is because chicken breast takes longer time to cook  and positioning chicken this way will make sure that breast are fully cooked Lower heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes
	Get ready a pot of water. Throw some garlics, gingers, pandan leaves and bring to boil on high heat. When the water is boiling , submerge the whole chicken into the water with its back facing up. Add in the chicken bones and feet. You can also consider to stuff the chicken with the garlics, pandan leaves and some spring onions before you poached the chicken. The reason letting the chicken having its back facing up is because chicken breast takes longer time to cook  and positioning chicken this way will make sure that breast are fully cooked Lower heat and simmer for approximately 30 minutes.
Cooking the rice…..
	Use some type of measuring cups (be it the cooking measuring cups or your rice cooker cups)  and  pour adequate quantities chicken stocks (from simmering/poaching  the chicken earlier) to the rice and make sure that it is just adequate to cover the rice. Note: How much liquid (in this case chicken stock) is needed to cook the rice is very much depends on the types of rice you have. Some rice may need more water to cook than the others. On the rice cooker and when cooked, fluff rice gently with chopsticks (while loosening rice and avoid rice burnt at the bottom of the rice cooker. Leave at “keep warm” settings for about 10-15 minutes and a plate of chicken rice is ready.
Serving your chicken rice…
	Get ready a bowl, add some light soya sauce, sesame oils, and a bit of left over chicken stocks and mix well, set aside. Cut your chicken into parts, arrange on platter over a bed of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. Pour sesame soya sauce oil over the chicken and garnish with coriander leaves. In this picture, I have deboned the chicken and the whole plate of chicken are boneless In separate condiments bowls, serve chili sauce, ginger sauce and thick soya sauce as dips. Serve with warm rice and some chicken soups. There should be some chicken stocks left after you used it to cook the rice. I just throw in some tomatoes, chye shim, and tofu to make some soups for my kids to eat along with the rice.

Here is the chicken rice and does it look appealing to you? Overall, I think I spent less than SGD 10 for the entire dish for a meal of 4 family members. This price is not adequate for you to have a plate of chicken rice at a posh restaurant outlet. At a local food court, if we order one whole chicken plus four plates of rice, one plate of vegetables, plain chicken soup, you will need at least SGD to have that.  We can’t really finished the meals and we still have half a pot of rice left and about one third of chicken left.

The “aftermaths”…..….CHICKEN PORRIDGE

I used the left over chicken “stock” from submerging the poached chicken in the ice water, throw the chicken rice, the meat into the water and boil for about 15 minutes. Add condiments and garnished with fried onion, coriander leaves and chopped onion and a bowl of chicken porridge is ready for breakfast.

WHY NOT COOK SOME CHICKEN RICE FOR YOUR MOTHER THIS MOTHER DAY? IF YOU CANNOT COOKED FOR HER, WHY NOT FORWARD THIS POST TO HER AND SAY.

“ MUMMY, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY,

Mom, You’ve cooked for me with love all this while and how I wish I could prepare this dish for you this Sunday to assure you that your kid have grown up and able to take care of themselves.  However, since I am not free to cook this Sunday,  why not we  have the most famous Chicken Rice  in Singapore  at the famous Mandar…. Hotel  in Orchard Road instead? Mom, I love you….. “

Just joking!!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL MOTHERS;

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY  WIFE – MY KID’S MOTHER ; AND

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO MY WIFE’S MOTHER – MY MOTHER IN LAW………

Enjoy reading and look out for my National Flower Series – Spain (Red Carnation).

 

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 10-5-2013

On 10-May-2013

1. Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南鸡饭）
2. Chicken Soup with Tofu and Vegetable (青菜豆腐鸡汤）

We have Hainanese chicken rice today and a post on process of chicken rice will be released soon. Please check food preparation series where I will detail out the steps to prepare the chicken rice. As there were some chicken stock left after I simmer the chicken, I just threw some Chye Shims, tomatoes and tofu to make a soup to go with the chicken rice.

Happy reading.