I love cooking for convenience and this is the main reason as to why I cook a lot of one-pot or one dish meals. But wouldn’t it be so much better if you cooked a dish that included your protein, your carb source, and a soup? Well, I cooked something like that today. Hello, Hainanese chicken rice.
I really appreciate dishes that can really provide for you — Hainanese chicken rice is one of them. It consists of a whole chicken, rice, and a soup. It’s sufficient enough to feed a small family or if you want to have leftovers for a couple of days. A whole chicken is stuffed and poached over the stove top and butchered into small pieces with an accompanying soup and rice to go with it.
Funnily enough, the first time I had actual Hainanese chicken rice was just last year for one of my birthday dinners at Penang Delight. Everyone seems to go crazy over this shit and it was recommended so I did end up ordering it. I mean, it was okay. It wasn’t outstanding or anything. It didn’t blow my mind. But it was simple, comforting, and oh-so-moist. It was good in that sense.
Must be easy, eh? No. I screwed up. Let’s just say don’t be tempted to increase the heat once you drop the heat to low. But the rice turned out wonderfully!!!
Don’t be scared. Just follow Steamy Kitchen’s recipe and you’ll be fine.
Hainanese chicken (adapted from Steamy Kitchen)
What you’ll need:
Chicken and soup
– 1 organic whole chicken (4lbs)
– Kosher salt
– 3″ stem of ginger, sliced
– 4 stalks green onion, chopped into 2″ pieces
– Water
Rice
– Chicken fat (atleast 2 tbsp; I used all of it)
– 4 garlic cloves, minced
– 1″ piece of ginger, minced
– 2 cups jasmine rice
– 3.5 cups of chicken poaching liquid
Garnish & Condiments (optional)
– Cucumber slices
– Cilantro
– Sriracha
– Ginger-scallion sauce
What you’ll need to do:
1. Exfoliate the chicken with a handful of kosher salt. You want to be able to remove as much of the impurities as possible.
2. Season inside the cavity and the whole exterior of the chicken generously with kosher salt.
3. Stuff the chicken with green onion and ginger.
4. Place in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover the chicken completely. Turn the stove onto high.
5. Bring the water to an almost boil and then drop the heat to low. Let the chicken cook for an hour. Be sure to skim off the fat that collects on top of the cooking liquid. Reserve this chicken fat for the rice in a smaller pot. Also during this time, prepare your other ingredients, ice bath, and garnishes if desired.
6. Once the chicken is cooked, lift the chicken out of the cooking liquid and place into an ice bath. This will stop the cookig immediately. Reserve the cooking liquid as this will be your soup.
7. Meanwhile, bring your small pot with the chicken fat to the stove on turn up the heat to medium-high.
8. Add your aromatics (ginger and garlic) and then add the rice which is to be toasted.
9. After this, you may continue cooking your rice in a rice cooker or keep it on the stove to cook. Either way, just add your poaching liquid to the rice, bring to a boil, and then drop the heat to low to cook completely. It will be done in 20 minutes.
10. Finally, bring your chicken to a chopping board and chop into pieces.
11. Serve chicken with the rice, soup, cucumber slices, Sriracha sauce, cilantro, and ginger scallion sauce. Makes 8 servings.
Umami & Me 
Would this recipe work with chicken parts, like drumsticks or thighs, replacing the whole chicken?
I haven’t tried that but it should work? The skin definitely needs to be on or else you won’t have much fat to skim off the top which is to be used to cook the chicken rice. And perhaps just add the scallions and ginger slices to the pot? It should work, I think? Might not be as authentic though. Make sure to generously season the broth though if you do try it out. Let me know how it turns out!!!