Hainanese Chicken Rice
A classic Singaporean / Malaysian dish of succulent poached chicken and flavored rice served with chilli-garlic sauce, soy sauce and a clear chicken soup.
Equipment
Ingredients
For cooking the Chicken and Broth
- 4 Chicken thighs (small), skin on (Refer note#1 if using a full chicken)
- ½ tbsp Soy sauce
- 1 inch Ginger (Sliced)
- 1 Green Onion(s) (Cut into 2 or 3 pieces)
- Water (Enough to cover the chicken in stock pot)
- Salt (To taste)
- Pepper (To taste)
For the Ice Bath
- Water
- Ice cubes
For the Glaze
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
- ½ tsp Salt
For the Rice
- ⅔ cups White Rice
- Chicken fat (Set aside when cleaning the chicken)
- 1 Garlic clove(s) (minced)
- ½ inch Ginger (minced)
- 1 Shallot (minced)
- 1½ tsp Soy sauce
- 1½ tsp Sesame oil
- 1 Pandan / screwpine leaves (Refer to note#4)
- 1⅓ cups Chicken Broth (Used to cook chicken)
For the Sweet Soy sauce
- 1 tsp Sugar
- 1 tsp Warm water
- 1 tsp Soy sauce
- 1 tsp Rice vinegar (Refer to note#5)
- 1 tsp Sesame oil
- 2 tsp Chicken Broth (Used to cook chicken)
For the Chilli-Garlic sauce
- 4 Red bird's eye chilli pepper (Thai Chilli) (Refer to note#6)
- 5 Garlic clove(s) (Refer to note#6)
- 2 inch Ginger
- 2 tsp Rice Vinegar / White Vinegar
- ½ tsp Salt (Adjust to preference)
- ½ tsp Sugar (Adjust to preference)
- 2 tsp Chicken Broth (Adjust to preferred sauce consistency))
To Serve
- Green Onion(s) (Chopped)
- Cilantro (Chopped)
- Cucumber slices
Instructions
To cook the chicken and broth
- Rinse the chicken well. Remove excess fat from the chicken and set aside. If using chicken thighs, trim off the excess fat from the underside by cutting and scraping, If using a whole chicken, you can cut fat from the back cavity.
- Lightly rub the chicken with coarse or kosher salt to exfoliate it. Keep rubbing till you get all the loose skin off and the skin shines. Rinse the chicken under running water to remove the salt, and pat dry.
- Fill a stock pot with water and add chicken. Ensure that the water covers the chicken. If using a whole chicken, place the chicken such that the breast side faces down. Leave to boil.
- Add green onions and ginger into the pot.
- Once the soup boils, turn the chicken over. If using full chicken, turn it over so the breast side is on top. Remove some water from the stock pot so that the chicken breast just peeps out of the water. (This is because breast cooks faster than other parts of chicken, and may dry out if overcooked.)
- Cover the pot and let the stock / broth simmer for around 20 minutes.
- Close to the 20 minute mark, prepare a large bowl of ice water.
- Remove the chicken from the pot, but don't switch the stove off. Let the stock continue simmering. Dip the chicken in the ice bath for 15 seconds and then keep it aside.
- Mix sesame oil and salt to prepare the glaze for the chicken. Coat this on the skin of chicken. (I use a basting brush for this)
- Continue simmering the broth for at least 40 minutes. The more you simmer, the tastier the broth.
- Taste, and add salt and pepper, if required.
To cook the rice
- Wash rice and keep aside.
- After the broth is ready, heat a second pot to medium heat. To this pot, add the chicken fat that you had previously set aside. Render the fat till all the oil is released and the solids turn brown and crispy.
- With a slotted spoon, remove the solids from the rendered chicken fat.
- Add minced garlic, ginger and shallot to the the pot. Sauté them in chicken fat until fragrant.
- Now, add the washed rice and sauté for about a minute.
- Add soy sauce, sesame oil and pandan leaves to the rice. Mix well.
- Pour in broth (used to cook chicken) to the rice. Stir to mix and leave to cook over high heat.
- Once the rice mixture boils, reduce the heat to the lowest setting and simmer covered until the rice is cooked. The cooking time will depend on the variety of rice you use. It took me around 10 minutes.
To make the Sweet Soy sauce
- Dissolve sugar in warm water.
- Then, add the remaining ingredients for the sauce. Mix well and the sauce is ready.
To make the Chilli-Garlic sauce
- Deseed the red chilli pepper.
- Grind the chilli peppers, garlic cloves and ginger along with vinegar in a blender or food processor until smooth.
- Add salt and sugar to your taste. Mix in some broth (used for cooking chicken, and cooled to room temperature or lower). Adjust broth quantity to get the sauce consistency you prefer.
Serving suggestions
- Cut the chicken into thin long pieces and serve over rice or on a separate plate. Either way, pour some of the sweet soy sauce over the chicken.
- Warm the soup up and garnish with chopped green onions and/or cilantro leaves.
- Serve Hainanese Chicken Rice at room temperature, with warm soup, cucumber slices, chilli-garlic sauce and more sweet soy sauce on the side.
Notes
- If using a full chicken (that weighs around 1.5 kg) , adjust the servings to '6' in the recipe card for appropriate proportions of ingredients.
- You can use boneless thighs too. I usually prefer thighs with bones because I like the flavor bones give to the stock / broth.
- If you like the stock / broth to be slightly sweet, add some radish / carrot when you cook the chicken.
- If you don't have pandan leaves, skip it. Substitution cannot bring the same flavor. Pandan leaves make the recipe authentic, but I have made without it and it still tasted a lot like Hainanese Chicken Rice. So, don't avoid making it just because you don't have pandan leaves! :)
- While making the sweet soy sauce, you can add a bit of Shaoxing wine or Oyster sauce for a more authentic taste. Reduce rice vinegar,if you prefer. I just like the taste of rice vinegar in my sauce.
- For the Chilli-Garlic Sauce,
- I use Thai chilli, which is a very spicy variety of chilli pepper. Increase the number if you use a less spicy variety and make sure they are red in color.
- Reduce the number of garlic cloves if you don't like garlicky taste. The authentic sauce is garlicky.
- Drizzling a bit of the sweet soy sauce on the cucumber slices gives it a more authentic look if you are trying to recreate the food court or hawker-style Hainanese Chicken Rice.
- Time-saving tip: Prepare the ingredients to cook the rice and for the sauces as you wait for the chicken to get cooked. You can also start making the sauce with all the required ingredients except broth. Just add in the broth when it's ready and cool.
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