Hainanese chicken rice
Practically a national dish in Singapore. It's considered by many to be a must-try and was ranked among CNN's "World's 50 best foods" in 2018.
Ingredients
Chicken
- 1,5 kg chicken
- 15 g ginger
- 4 spring onions (green parts)
- 2 tbsp salt
Green sauce (spring onion and ginger)
- 40 ml peanut oil (or vegetable oil)≈ 40 g
- 1 tsp black sesame oil
- 4 spring onions (white parts)
- 1 tbsp ginger
- 0,5 tsp salt
Red sauce (chilli)
- 3 long Thai mild chillies
- 2 bird's eye chillies
- 60 g ginger
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp white vinegar
- 1 tsp lemon juice (optional)
- salt
- white pepper
Black sauce (kecap manis)
- 70 ml low-sodium soy sauce≈ 70 g
- 70 g palm sugar (or brown sugar)
Rice
- 300 g Thai jasmine rice (long grain)
- 350 ml chicken stock≈ 350 g
- 4 cloves garlic
- 2 shallots
- 2 pandan leaves
- white pepper
Method
Green sauce (spring onion and ginger)
- 1In a mortar, crush the ginger and the white and light-green parts of the spring onions until you get a paste. Heat the oil then pour it into the mortar (if it's heat-resistant). Add the sesame oil and the salt. Stir and set aside.
Chicken
- 2Recover the fat found inside the chicken (near the bottom cavity). Trim the excess skin (also near the bottom opening). Chop it with a knife and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for approximately 45 minutes until you get chicken fat and golden bits of skin.
- 3Clean the chicken thoroughly by massaging it with salt. Rinse.
- 4Crush the ginger. Set aside.
- 5Heat 5 litres of water. Add the ginger and the dark-green parts of the spring onions. Add a tablespoon of salt. Taste and add up to one more tablespoon if needed. You should distinctly taste the salt without it being unpleasant.
- 6When the temperature reaches 70°C (small bubbles starting at the bottom), use a ladle to pour hot water over the chicken for 2 minutes to start cooking the skin and bond it to the flesh.
- 7High heat, bring to a boil. Low heat, plunge the chicken into the hot water. Cook 40 minutes at 80°C (no boil but steam rising).
- 8Prepare the ice bath: in a large container, add ice, 1 tsp salt and water.
- 9Plunge the chicken in the ice bath for 2 minutes. Cut off the neck, feet and tail and add them to the chicken stock. Cook this stock over medium heat for another hour.
- 10Pass a length of twine under the chicken's wings and suspend it for 1 hour.
- 11Cut the chicken with or without the bones, depending on your preference.
Rice
- 12Mince the shallot and the garlic.
- 13Rinse the rice 3 times, drain and set aside.
- 14Heat a pan over medium heat, add the chicken fat that should have finished rendering. Add the shallots and garlic. Let them brown lightly, then add the rice. Stir well so that each grain of rice is coated with chicken fat.
- 15Cook the rice using your usual method (rice cooker, saucepan) but read the note at the bottom carefully if you're using a rice cooker. In all cases you'll need to add 350 ml of chicken stock (1:1 ratio), as well as two pandan leaves. No salt because the stock is already salted, but you can add a little white pepper.
Black sauce
- 16Add the soy sauce and sugar and cook over low heat until you get a syrupy consistency. If the mixture starts to boil too vigorously, remove from the heat for a moment.
Red sauce
- 17Blend the various ingredients. You can also use a mortar or even blend and then finish in the mortar (my method).
- 18With a ladle, collect some oil from the top of the chicken stock as it cooks and add it to the mixture until you reach the desired consistency.
Notes
Ask your butcher to save this chicken fat for you. Otherwise, whenever you have the opportunity, freeze unused chicken skin specifically for this recipe. I personally recovered 50 ml of oil with my chicken. The amount of water must be enough to cover the chicken so it doesn't touch the bottom. If for some reason it's tricky to hold the chicken while ladling water over it, you have a second option: dip the chicken in the water for 10 seconds and lift it out (5 times). You can check whether the chicken is cooked starting at 30-35 minutes by piercing it with a chopstick. If the liquid that comes out is pink, the chicken isn't cooked. If it's clear, you can stop cooking. The black sauce can be replaced with "Sweet Soy Sauce" found at Asian grocers or online. The chicken stock will be served as a broth alongside. You can also enhance it by adding, as you wish, carrots, corn or even daikon. You'll need to reserve 350 ml of chicken stock to cook the rice. Important: if you cook the rice in a rice cooker with hot stock, your rice will be overcooked because the rice cooker is calibrated to work with cold water. It's therefore worth using the ice bath that cooled the chicken as a bain-marie to also cool 350 ml of chicken stock. Pandan leaves are bought at an Asian grocer; they add a real touch of authenticity, but if you can't find any, you can still go without. In this recipe we aim for very lightly pink flesh through this below-boiling cooking. So we'll be careful to stop cooking as soon as the chicken is done. The skin should be yellow in colour (if possible) and gelatinous in texture. That's why it's important to choose a good-quality young chicken (organic) with rather yellow skin. In China we use "Wenchang" chicken. Given the considerable work put specifically into the skin (salt massage, hot water bath, ice bath), it would be a shame to tear it. So be very careful every time you handle the chicken. I take it out of the water, for instance, by sliding chopsticks under its wings, and I avoid using tongs. The chicken is generally cut with the bones because it gives pieces that are easy to grab with chopsticks, and the meat near the bone is considered by the Chinese to be the best. But it isn't a must — this dish is also prepared cut without breaking the bones, and is in fact eaten in Singapore with a spoon and fork. The chicken is generally eaten at room temperature, but it's also common to bring it back up to temperature and serve it hot. The seasoning of the chicken stock, the ice bath and the sauces is particularly important in this recipe. If there isn't enough salt, the dish can seem bland, whereas when well seasoned it's a delight. Hence the importance of tasting to get this just right.
