Believe it or not, despite the long list of ingredients, chicken rice is not difficult to make at home. On the contrary, compared to our nasi campur, chicken rice is much easier to make. As you will see later, every element of the dish: from the rice, the sauces and soup is made of chicken stock.
To keep the chicken moist, it’s best to use whole chicken. Here lies the problem for singles – you can’t be expected to eat the whole chicken by yourself. So, invite your friends over for lunch and wow them with your cooking skills. This recipe is so good you’d be licking off the plate.
The chicken rice I am making today is the “fried” version which is slightly different from Hainanese chicken rice.
First, we need to make the base of the dish.
The chicken soup:
- 1 whole chicken
- water, enough to cover the chicken
- 5 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
- 1 inch ginger, sliced
- 3 spring onion
- 1 sup bunjut
Note: Sup bunjut is readymade store bought spices wrapped in mesh cloth. You can easily make your own by using cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, black peppercorn and fennel seed.
Place the whole chicken in a large saucepan and cover with enough water. Add the other ingredients in and turn up the heat. When the water reaches boiling point, reduce the heat and continue to cook until the chicken is about half way done. The length of time depends on the size of the chicken. Mine took 30 mins.
Take the saucepan off the heat and the chicken out of the liquid. Place it in a bowl ready for the next step.
The chicken marinade:
Now we need to marinade the chicken with the ingredients below. Leave to marinade a couple of hours, at least ½ an hour.
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
Chili sauce:
While waiting for the chicken to marinade, you can start with the chili sauce. You’ll need:
- 8 red chillies
- 5 cloves garlic
- ½ inch garlic
- 1½ tbsp vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- ½ cup chicken soup (the one from boiling the chicken)
- salt to taste
Blend the chillies, garlic and ginger to a fine paste and pour into a saucepan. Add the chicken soup and cook on low heat until it thickens slightly. Add the sugar, vinegar and salt. Taste and adjust accordingly. Once done, take off the heat and put to the side to cool.
Chicken rice:
I’ve invited three friends for lunch so I’m cooking two cups of rice. The ratio of rice to liquid depends a lot on the type/brand of rice you are using. I like my rice to be slightly soft so generally the ratio that I use is 1:1.5. If not, stick to 1:1.
- 2 cups rice (I use basmati, as that’s what I have in my cupboard but long grain/jasmine works too)
- 3 cups chicken soup
- 1½ tbsp butter (you can replace with the fat from the chicken if you have some)
- 3 cloves garlic
- ⅓ inch ginger
- 2 cardamom
- 1 star anise
- 1 inch cinnamon
- 2 pandan leaves, knotted
- salt to taste
Wash and rinse the rice three times under cold water until the water is clear. I like to soak my rice for at least 15 min before cooking to remove excess starch. You can skip this step if you’re short of time.
Blend the garlic and ginger to a paste.
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the spices and the ginger/garlic paste and fry until fragrant and the paste turns golden brown.
Back to the rice that’s being soaked. Drain the water and pour the rice into the saucepan (the one with the ginger/garlic paste and spices frying). Stir to coat each grain with the mixture.
At this point, you can transfer the content of the saucepan to a rice cooker if you want. Add the soup, pandan leaves and salt to taste, switch on the rice cooker and let it do the rest of the work for you.
However, I couldn’t be bothered to take out the rice cooker just for this occasion. Cooking rice in a saucepan on the stovetop is equally easy. It’s the same process, add the chicken soup, pandan leaves and salt to taste.
Cover the saucepan and let the liquid come to a boil. This will only take a few minutes. Take the cover off and let the liquid mostly dry. At this point, cover the pan and reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Leave it for another 10 mins or so. Take off the heat but leave it covered for another 10 mins. Your rice should be done now.
Using a fork, fluff the rice and leave the cover on to keep the rice warm until serving time.
The rice, done right, is so yum you can even eat by mouthfuls on its own!
The chicken:
Once marinated, take the chicken out and leave it on a wire rack lined with a baking tray to let the sauce drip. This is to prevent “explosions” from happening when we fry the chicken later.
Preferably, you’d want to deep fry the chicken in hot oil. But I didn’t want to use too much oil so the chicken was half submerged in oil and I turned it to cook the other side.
Remember the chicken is already half cooked so it only takes a few minutes in the fryer. Personally, I prefer the fried version. If you can’t get your head around consuming all this oil, feel free to shove the bird in the oven and roast it.
Once the chicken is done, take it off the heat, place it on the wire rack for a few minutes to let any excess oil drip. Cut into smaller pieces for serving.
The soy sauce:
- What’s left of the chicken marinade
- ½ cup chicken soup
In a small saucepan, mix the two together and cook on medium heat until it bubbles. Take off the heat and let it cool.
Now, we are ready to plate up.
Serve the rice with the chicken on the side and the chili and soy sauce. Also, a small bowl of the chicken soup sprinkled with some chopped spring onion. Served with some lettuce, sliced cucumber and tomato for freshness.xo
