Shortcut Hainanese Chicken Rice
My window of time to make dinner for us is usually quite small. I liken it to the quick fire challenge on Top Chef except I don’t have a giant pantry full of EVERYTHING I could hope to use to make a protein or vegetable terribly interesting. The Husband gets home between 5:30 and 6pm, and The Toddler has to eat by 6:30 tops or we hit peak Witching Hour and that rarely ends well.
But as The Toddler has grown (he’s almost 2.. I’m still in disbelief) I’ve been able to keep him occupied while I can safely get dinner started. By safely I mean he’s not totally underfoot or anywhere he can accidentally grab at the hot oven or stove and tonight was one of those nights so I took the opportunity to make a dish I’ve been craving: Hainanese Chicken Rice, the dish made very popular by Anthony Bourdain (RIP) when he went to Singapore.
It’s such a simple dish, but simple doesn’t equal easy. The gist is you cook the ingredients using the chicken as a base. Typically you use a whole chicken, then use the fat and stock made from cooking said chicken to cook the rice and to create a soup and also use the fat in other ways for the dish. It’s served with slice cucumbers, sometimes fresh ginger that’s been finely blended, garlic chili paste and dark soy sauce. There’s a lot of steps and to get it as close to the real dish itself requires more time and effort.
I need things to be quick to make and still taste good so this recipe isn’t as intensive and it satisfied my craving enough that I’m now confident I can make it again. Also, The Toddler ate a lot of chicken and loved the rice.
NOTE: I don’t specify amounts, if I say “add salt” it means add to taste. Always taste your food as you’re cooking. If you need precise measurements leave a comment or email me I’ll do my best to give you more specifics.
Approximate time from start to finish was maybe an hour. Things got messy in the kitchen, but dinner was on the table by 6:30.
INGREDIENTS
4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs or any part of the chicken you like. Bone-in, skin on is key here. If you make this with chicken that’s boneless/skinless this won’t work.
Jasmine rice
1 cucumber
Fresh ginger
Garlic
Lemongrass
Sesame oil
Coarse Salt
Soy sauce
Chicken bone broth or chicken stock
Green onion
COOK THE CHICKEN
Boil water in a large pot that will have enough room for your chicken without the pieces overlapping.
Pat chicken dry and massage the skin with salt.
When water is at a rolling boil add the chicken and bring it down to between mid and low to simmer and cook for about five minutes, then bring the boil down to low, cover and cook for another 10 minutes.
Skim the fat and oil off into a bowl.
When chicken is cooked, remove from the pot onto a plate, rub sesame oil and a little salt into the skin. Cover and set aside.
Reserve some or all of the water in the pot to make a broth to go with your food. Skim off some more of the fat to use in the garlic chili paste.
COOK THE RICE:
Wash your rice, drain then add the fat you skimmed off + two cups of chicken bone broth/stock (or enough to make up the difference to yield the right amount of liquid to cook your rice properly)
Add a few slices of ginger (I added about five slices that were about 1/8” thick and two inches long) and as much garlic as you’d like.
Add a pinch of salt and cook* start cooking.
*I cook my rice in a rice cooker. I’ve never been able to cook rice that’s the right texture (al dente-ish, not mushy) on the stove top so if you’re looking for perfect rice, get a good rice cooker. I love mine.
While the rice is cooking and making your kitchen smell even better, slice up your cucumber, cut the chicken up and place onto a serving dish or wait to serve it on the rice when it’s done. For a little added flavor I like to mix some soy sauce with sesame oil and drizzle it over the meat and cucumbers before serving.
CHILI PASTE:
I made a tiny batch of the chili paste while the rice was cooking and the chicken was sitting. I used 11 little thai red chilis and a big, fat clove of fresh garlic. I blended them together and then stirred in the oil skimmed from the chicken broth, some salt, and sesame oil. You can also finely chop cilantro and ginger and add that to your chili if you’d like.
SERVE:
You can dish the food up on individual plates and just lay the chicken on top of the rice or you can do it family style. Each person gets a bowl of the broth/soup, a tiny dish for the chili paste and some dark soy sauce to drizzle over the rice or add to the chili or both. And by dark soy sauce I’m talking about DARK soy sauce. So regular soy sauce won’t cut it and will completely overpower the flavor of your rice.
Slice the green onions lengthwise to create little ribbons. I leave them in water while I cook and then toss them on top of the chicken and rice. Another great garnish is fried, crispy garlic!
HOW IS THIS A SHORTCUT?
Chicken parts vs. a whole chicken which is what the actual recipe calls for. Cut down on cook time plus I’ve never ever been able to cook a whole chicken properly and some parts are undercooked and others are over. I was able to serve up almost restaurant level chicken with this shortcut recipe!
Packaged bone broth vs using only the water from cooking the chicken. Sometimes I use a bouillon cube.
I didn’t use a lot of ingredients I should have like screwpine leaf and lemongrass for the rice.
And there you have it! Shortcut Hainanese chicken rice! Hope you give it a try too and I hope you like it!
