Home-made Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南鸡飯)

Ever since my beloved father passed-away I've been busy. Clean & rent out my parent's home. Now, it's my turn to take care of my mom. My father used to help me fetch my kids from tuition classes or school when I'm half-way baking or cooking but now no one is there to help me anymore :(

I'm sorry to readers who've leave me message. I've got 58 unanswered message in my message inbox and I just realized that I have abandoned this Cooking Crave blog for more than 6 months. I promised will go thru all the message & answer it one by one when I'm free. I'm so sorry for those who really have waited my reply.

From now on, I will try to make sometime to continue blogging and share my recipe with all of you. Thank you so much for being such a loyal follower of my blog. It really put a smile on my face & cheer up my day !! ~

Yeah, today I cooked chicken rice for lunch.  There are 2 types of chicken rice available or sold at "kopitiam".  Some chicken rice come with roasted chicken & boiled chicken.  Normally I will have the roasted type when we dine outside.   

For me, I still prefer the steamed chicken type when cook it myself at home.   Less oily, juicier & it's very easy to prepare it.  At least it won't messed up our kitchen, less work to clean all the oily stuff.. hehe.  If you're chicken rice lover, do try this out ... I bet you'll fall in love with it ... haha !!!  It smells heavenly too .. yums!!

Hainanese Steamed Chicken Rice Recipe

Ingredient for Rice :

4 cup thai fragrant rice 

(can be replace with any type of rice of your choice)

chicken broth

(enough for rice cooking)

1 piece of ginger - about 2-3 inch size

(skinned & smashed)

8 gloves garlic

(lightly smashed with skin intact)

5 cardamom (buah pelaga)

1 cinnamon (kulit kayu manis)

- about 2 inch in size

5 cloves (bunga cengkih)

p.s : don't be greedy, too much of cardamom, cinnamon & cloves will ruin the taste of the rice, just add it accordingly.

6-8 pandan (screwpine) leaves

washed & tie into knot

some salt to taste 

1 spoon of margarine 

(for stir-frying)

How to cook:

• Heat the wok & add in margarine, saute smashed ginger and garlic till fragrant.
• Add in cardamom, cinnamon & cloves.  Continue to saute till it is fragrant. 
• Add in washed rice and saute till rice is coated well with the oil.
• Add salt to taste (about 3/4 teaspoon is enough).
• Stir until it is well mixed.
• Place the rice with all the ingredients - spices, ginger & garlic into rice cooker.
• Add in the pandan (screwpine) leaves.
• Add in chicken broth instead of your usual water.
• Cook the rice as usual.

Ingredient for Chicken :

5 chicken drumstick with the upper thigh

(can use 1 whole kampung chicken)

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

some pepper

5 gloves garlic

(skinned & chopped)

 - stir-fried it with some oil - garlic oil for garnishing the cooked steamed chicken

some ginger

(skinned & sliced)

coriander leaves (daun ketumbar)

(for garnishing)

What to do :

• Clean the chicken, remove the excessive fat and blood.  Keep the skin intact.
• Place the chicken into a metal plate.  Sprinkled ginger slices on top of the chicken, add in soy sauce, sesame oil & pepper.
• Place the chicken into the hot boiling pot or wok & steamed for about 35-40 mins. (make sure the water already boiling hot before put the chicken to steam)
• In a small pan, heat some cooking out and saute the chopped garlic until it is golden brown.  Remove the garlic together with the oil into a small bowl.  Set aside.
• After 40mins, remove the cooked chicken from the wok.  Chopped the chicken into biting size and arrange it nicely into a plate.
• Garnish it with garlic oil & chopped coriander leaves.

How to make Sauce for rice:

• In a bowl, add 3-4 tbsp oyster sauce, 1/2 tbsp sugar & some soy sauce.  Stir to mix before add in some chicken broth.  If it is too salty, adjust by adding some sugar to taste.  Bean paste, chillies, garlic & coriander leaves can be added too.  As my kids they don't like all those ingredients, I didn't add it.  (this is my lazy method of making sauce, you can always make your own sauce to eat it with the rice.. hehe)

Ingredient for Ginger Chili Sauce for chicken:

5-6 red chillies, stem & seeds removed

1 inch ginger

5-6 glove garlic, skinned

4-5 limes, juiced

6-7 tbsp chicken broth

What to do :

Blend all ingredients till smooth ... that's it !!

P/S :  For the left over chicken broth, I add in some white radish & carrot, continue to boil it for few minutes.  Here we have chicken rice served with a bowl of radish soup .. Just in case, you get choked when eating too fast .. hehehe 

HAPPY COOKING 

Amy Ong