Hainanese Chicken Rice - homemade

So I had a free day today and decided to try out the Hainanese Chicken Rice for a second time. Truth be told, this dish is really not as easy as it seems! I´ve got a recipe, but I still had to play around with the quantities of the ingredients! The amounts of garlic, ginger, shallots, salt had to be varied according to the taste.

Right: The chicken soup made from boiling the chicken bones for hours tasted awesome though! My hubby said he could just drink the soup for dinner! Hee.

The secret to this dish lies in the rice. If your rice tastes authentic, you´ve succeeded. I would say that my rice tasted authentic, but taste wasn´t strong enough.

I think there´s a difference whether you cook 100 chickens like those hawker centre uncles or just 1 chicken like myself. Still, when I added the condiments of dark soya sauce and chilli sauce, I must say that it tasted like the real thing!

There was so much leftovers that we decided to pack them into smaller portions and give them to the in-laws and our Indonesian pastor. :)

Recipe:-

Ingredients for chicken

1 whole chicken

5 slices fresh ginger

8 cloves garlic (smashed with skin intact)

1-2 teaspoon salt

spring onions

How to do it:

1.Rub salt all over chicken

2.Stuff 2 cloves of bashed garlic, 2 thick slices of fresh ginger and 2 stalks of spring onions in chicken and seal with toothpick.

3. Heat up oil, lightly brown 6 cloves of bashed garlic, 3 slices of ginger, 2 stalks of spring onions and 1 whole shallot (finely-cut).

4. Add enough water to the pot to cover the chicken. Add 1 tsp salt.

5. Simmer on low heat for about 20 - 25 minutes or till cooked.

6. Remove the chicken, plunge it in ice water for about 15 minutes or till chicken is no longer hot.

7. Return the carcass to the broth and continue to boil for a few hours to get a superb broth.

8. Cut chicken into pieces.

Ingredients for Rice:

400grams Rice

400grams broth from cooking chicken

4 slices Ginger

5 cloves Garlic, lightly smashed with skin intact

1 shallot, finely cut

4 Pandan leaves, tied in a knot

Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. In a wok, add 2 teaspoon oil, preferably chicken fat or vegetable oil.

2. Saute ginger, garlic and shallot till fragrant.
3. Add in washed rice and saute till rice is coated well with the oil.
4. Add salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon is enough).
5. Stir to mix well.
6. Pour everything into rice cooker.
7. Add in broth from chicken you cooked earlier

8. Add in the pandan leaves.
Let your rice cooker do the cooking. ;)

Complete the meal by serving it with a dish of chinese vegetables and oyster sauce.

Adapted from www.wokkingmum.blogspot.com and www.beaulotus.blogspot.com