Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice

Chicken rice is one of the MUST TRY food when you visit Singapore, it is one of our national dishes in Singapore, well known and well known by both the locals and tourists too. It is also one of my daughter´s favourite food too! She could eat it everyday and never get tired of it.

My mum used to tell me, countryside chicken is best when making this dishes because this chicken are free-range chickens that are allowed to roam instead of being caged. Though scrawnier than their farmed counterparts, these chickens are generally considered to have higher nutritional value. Mum prefer older chicken because she prefer she think that they are sweeter in flavour and she like to chew the tough texture of chicken meat compare to young tender chicken. I remember once her false teeth flew out of her mouth when she was trying to get a big bite on the huge chicken drumstick!

Whenever Mum make chicken rice, I could smell it from far away. The unique aroma is very strong, the fragrance keep reminds me of Chinese New Year. Whenever I cook chicken rice here in Sweden, just imagine even 3 layers of glasses window could not keep the smell from escaping out of my house.

If you are at a food mall in Singapore and do not know what to eat, watch out for customer on qeue..if there are many people qeueing at a particular stall, this mean that most likely the food from that stall are good. Take a look at this chicken rice stall for example, the qeue are so long!! Singaporean will do anything to eat good food including waiting 2 hours for a donut!


Here´s a video I find quite easy to fellow if you like to have a better understanding of how to cook this dish.



And also the recipe for chicken rice if you like to experience this popular dishes without having to travel to Singapore. Good luck!

Ingredients (6 servings):
1 chicken drum stick ..about 2 kgs
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2" fresh ginger root, crushed
2 spring onions, chopped briefly
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Rice:
3 cups long grain rice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemongrass, crushed
2 screwpine leaves
4-5 cups chicken broth
Salt to taste

Chilli Sauce:
2-3 calamansi limes, seeded
2 tbsp chicken broth
2 tsp sugar
2-3 red chillies
4 cloves garlic
1 inch ginger
salt

Garnish:
2 cucumbers, sliced
2 fresh tomatoes, sliced

Methods:

1.
Remove excess fats off and reserve for cooking rice IF DESIRED.
2.
Bring a large pot of water to boil with some sea salt (enough to submerge the whole chicken), add in garlic, ginger and spring onion.
3.
Submerge the chicken into boiling water, then cover and reduce heat down to slow poach. Let it cook for 30 to 35 minutes.
5.
When chicken is cooked, remove and plunge immediately into a bath of icy cold water, submerging the chicken for about 10 minutes. Remove chicken from the water, drain well and set aside.
6.
RICE: Rinse rice till water is running clear, drain well.
7.
Heat wok on high, add in vegetable oil and sesame oil. If using chicken fat, add in reserved chicken fat and cook until the oil is rendered. Fry chicken fat untill crispy. My cat was roaming around my leg while I was frying the fat..I gave her a few when it was done..she love it!



Add in some vegetable oil if oil to make up 3 tablespoons of oil if chicken oil is insufficient.
8.
Add chopped garlic, stir-fry for a few seconds or till browned lightly. Add in raw rice, stir-fry till the rice grains start to look translucent.
9.
Transfer rice into an electrical rice cooker, add 5 to 6 cups chicken broth (up to level "3" in the rice cooker pot), pandan leaves and lemongrass. Add salt to taste if necessary and cook as if cooking plain rice.



10.
Once the rice is cooked, turn heat off and wait for 10 minutes before opening the lid. Steam inside will gently finish steaming the rice.
11.
Fluffy up the rice with a wooden spatula, remove pandan leaves and lemongrass.
12.
SAUCE: Put all ingredients in the blender and pause the blender a few times to make paste. It does not need to be very smooth. I separated the chilli sauce because I like the strong clean sharp flavour of the ginger and garlic.



13.
SERVING: Line a serving platter with sliced cucumber, arrange chicken pieces on top and drizzle soy sauce and sesame oil over, garnish and serve with rice, soup and chili dipping sauce.