Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Hainanese Chicken Rice/Poached Chicken Rice

I will always ask Diana what she wants me to cook for her whenever she comes home on the weekend. Last week she wanted me to teach her how to make Hainanese Chicken Rice. For this dish I personally prefer roast chicken rather than poach as I find poach chicken rather tasteless. With the temperature soaring up to 105 degree F it is a good idea to cook this as I don't have to spend too much time in the kitchen.


Ingredients For Chicken:

1 chicken (about 2.5 pound) preferably organic or free range chicken
2 spring onions
1 large piece of ginger, smashed
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
1 tsp of pepper
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp of light sauce sauce


Garnish :Cucumber - slice
Tomato - slice
Spring Onion and coriander - thinly slice

1. Wash chicken and remove excess fat. Stuff chicken with spring onion, ginger and garlic.
2. Fill a big pot with water and make sure the level is enough to immerse the chicken. Bring to boil and put in the chicken and cook over low heat for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked (depend on the size)
3. Remove chicken and drain the liquid from the cavity and plunge the chicken into cold water for 5 minutes. Drain well. In a small bowl mixed sesame oil, salt, pepper and light soy sauce and rub it all over the chicken. Set aside.

Ingredients For Chicken Rice:2 cups of Jasmine rice
2 cloves of garlic
1 small piece ginger, smashed
2 pandan leaves, knotted
chicken stock (the poaching liquid)
1 tsp salt

1. Wash rice, drain in a colander and leave to stand for 10 minutes.
2. Transfer rice to rice cooker and add in the chicken stock (enough to cook the rice), pandan leaves, ginger, garlic and salt. When the rice is done remove the garlic, ginger and pandan leaves.

For the Chili Sauce :
5 fresh red chillies
2 " of fresh ginger
4 cloves of garlic
juice of 2 lime
4 tbsp of vinegar
2 tsp of sugar
some salt

Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth.


To serve :

1. Cut Chicken into bite-size pieces and serve with sliced cucumber, tomatoes, coriander leaves and spring onion. Serve it with warm rice and soup (from the poach chicken)

25 comments:

Beachlover said...

oh!! you make me drooling now looking at your delicious Hainese chicken rice!!.You so rajin making chili sauce yourself,I just use chop ayam chili sauce mix with garlic and lime.Yes,it's really hot these few days,temp is soaring 100 F plus and up..make me lazy too.I didn't cook,just eat left over.

Salt N Turmeric said...

im so gonna try making this but with roast chicken. thanks for the tip on making the sauce. thts like the important part of chicken rice.

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh you made i! Im going to try this also :) What are the main ingredients for the roast chicken version? Thanks very much :)

Zue Murphy said...

Hainanese chicken for lunch sounds great. Your dish looks delicious. I am glad you are able to turn the stove with low heat. Why do you have to cool down the chicken?

Anonymous said...

Wah gert, your hainanese chicken rice looks delicous. I tried to cook once (long long time ago) but turn out not nice. Thanks for the recipe, will try it next time.

- Kath

Cat Cat said...

Gert,
Diana is so lucky to have all the home-cooked food during the weekend. We had chicken too for dinner tonight but from KFC lah...

Anonymous said...

Gert,
I had fried queso blanco for dinner. It was good but its no Hainanese Chicken rice. At the risk of being presumptuous and sounding (like)a glut, please save two plates for me :).

Lee.

Mandy said...

i love hainanese chicken rice for the rice. :p Yours look absolutely delectable!

Kiersten said...

Wow! My hat's off to you, Gert! It looks absolutely delicious.

Penny said...

I am going to try this!!! Thanks for sharing!

Yatie_T said...

Gert,
you're killing me here. I want some of your Nasi Ayam, it looks sooo gooood. I can't stop thinking about it. Will have to cook ASAP. hehehe

ICook4Fun said...

Lesley, is soooooooo hot here. Really cannot tahan already :(

Farina, I too like the roasted chicken :)

Star, for the roast chicken I just rub it with salt & pepper, 5 spice powder, some soy sauce and when it's nearly done I brush it with some honey.

Zue, by cool down the chicken it will stop the cooking and also tighten the skin. It will give the skin a bit of crunch.

Kath, you are most welcome :)

Cat, I will try to make her homecook food when she is back and also 'ta pau' some for the week :)

Lee, you can have as many plates as you want. The next time you come again I have to cook something for you :)

Mandy, thank you.

Pinky, what to do..mahu makan Malaysian food punya pasal I have to cook it myself :)

Penny, do let me know how yours turn out :) You create a new blog?

Yatie, ni senang buat..:)

Zue Murphy said...

Oh! Pandai you kasi the chicken crunchy. Emmm... sedapnya!

Unknown said...

goshhh yumminy yumminy...i love chicken rice!! i wish i can eat everything with chicken rice ^_^

Dwiana P said...

Oh may.... delish!! I don't mind at all if you can share one plate to me:)

Sri said...

Hi! I'm a Singaporean living in Florida and you just made me crave for chicken rice! I always made mine poached but will try it roasted. :D

Thanks!

ICook4Fun said...

Zue, :) :)

Rita, I too like the rice alot. Can eat it just like that :)

Dwiana, give me a shout any time you are in this area. I don't mind cooking it for you :)

Sri, thanks for dropping by and your comment :)

test it comm said...

That looks good. I have been wanting to try Hainanese chicken rice for a while now.

eatingclubvancouver_js said...

Lovely!

Thanks for sharing!

Nate @ House of Annie said...

Mmm nice. I love HCR.

Thanks for the chili sauce recipe. Annie's mum likes it with dark soy sauce but I like the chili-ginger-garlic-lime version better. Yours looks very wet. Do you think you can cut the amount of vinegar used?

ICook4Fun said...

Kevin, hope you will try this out soon.

Js, you are most welcome.

Nate, you can always reduce the vinegar to your liking. My dad too like to eat this with dark soy sauce with some raw garlic :)

Jessica604 said...

Yummy!!! My uncle is Singaporean and every time he is in town we always beg him to make HCR.

We've even videotaped him making it in hopes of replicating his, but its never the same. He stresses that you have to "acclimatize the chicken" to the water temperature by repeatedly plunging it into the water at first. Do you know anything about this?

Christelle said...

I wonder if I could not follow this recipe but with steaming the chicken in my my steamer(I'm a bit lazy like that), have you ever tried? or would you advise not to?

Christelle said...

I'm trying this one out tonight (I tried with steaming but this time I'll do the boiling, worth the bother, lol!!)
Really excited about it!!

Janet @Gourmettraveller88 said...

ooooh, yummy, haven't had it for a long time. Have to made it again. I used to have a Hainan chicken pack which is not bad at all but now I tried to use less and less pre pack materials for cooking and do it from scratch rather. Thanks for sharing ! Have to come back for the recipe.