Hainanese chicken rice recipe
This recipe is from BBC's Best Home Cook's 2020 winner Suzie Lee, featured in her new cookbook, Simply Chinese: Recipes from a Chinese Home Kitchen. She says: "Hainanese chicken originates from the province of Hainan in Southwest China and it has made its way to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Each country has its own take on this dish, but the chicken is always poached. Mum started to make a simplified version of this dish a couple of years before she passed away, and this is the recipe I share with you here."
Tip: If you want to make this simpler, use 1.3-1.5 kg (3lb 5oz) of chicken thighs or legs.
Ingredients
For the chicken:- 1 whole chicken, fat trimmed and set aside, 1.3-1.5kg (3lb 5oz)
- 50 g fresh ginger root, thinly sliced
- 2 large spring onions (scallions), roughly chopped
- 4 large garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp chicken stock powder or 1/2 chicken stock cube (optional)
- 2 spring onions (scallions), thinly sliced, to garnish
- 1 tsp vegetable oil
- 1 small onion, finely diced
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger root, grated
- 1 tsp garlic, grated
- 400 g basmati rice, rinsed in cold water and drained
- 30 g fresh ginger root, finely chopped
- 60 g spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 90 ml vegetable oil
Details
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Recipe Type: Chicken
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation Time: 20 mins
- Cooking Time: 60 mins
- Serves: 4
Step-by-step
- Cut off any excess skin from the chicken and reserve it for frying with the rice later.
- Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil (enough for the chicken to be submerged in). Add the chicken to the pan (breast side down) and bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes, scooping off any scum from the surface.
- Add the ginger, spring onions, garlic, salt, and chicken stock powder or crumbled stock cube (if using) to the pan and simmer over a medium heat for 30-35 minutes until the chicken is cooked.
- Carefully lift out the chicken and let it cool, retaining the poaching broth. Once cooled, chop the chicken into chunks with a sharp knife or cleaver.
- Heat the vegetable oil for the rice in a saucepan over a high heat. Add the chicken skin trimmings and fry until crispy, then add the onion, ginger and garlic and toss in the drained rice. Mix until the rice is coated.
- Add four ladles of the chicken stock from the poaching broth – bring to a simmer and once the water has been absorbed, repeat with more ladles of stock until the rice is cooked. You should need about 600 ml (20 fl oz/2 1/2 cups) of poaching liquid and it should take about 20 minutes; you do not want to make the rice sticky, so avoid stirring it too much. Cover to keep the rice warm and steaming.
- To make the sauce, mix the ginger, spring onions and salt in a heatproof bowl. Bring the vegetable oil to the boil in a small flameproof pot – you will see the surface rippling and that is when it is at boiling point – or you can test with the end of the wooden spoon: bubbles will fizz around a wooden spoon immediately. Pour this boiling hot oil over the bowl of ginger and spring onion.
- Plate everything up and serve.
Extracted from Simply Chinese: Recipes from a Chinese Home Kitchen by Suzie Lee (Hardie Grant, £20). Photography by Lizzie Mayson.
You might also like:
Fragrant Indonesian fried rice