Hainanese Chicken Rice Recipe

What is Hainanese Chicken Rice?

Hainanese Chicken rice is a chicken and rice dish of lightly poached chicken, served alongside rice that’s been cooked in the poaching liquid, with ginger-garlic chilli sauce and soup made from the poaching liquid.

It is one of our most beloved local dishes, alongside the chilli crab, laksa and beef rendang. Hit any hawker centre or food court, and you are going to find chicken rice, whether that’s today’s Hainanese chicken rice or the Nasi Ayam with fried or grilled chicken.

Nasi = rice
ayam = chicken

Ingredients
1 x 1.2 kg whole chicken 
6 spring onions (scallions)
10 cups chicken stock made with chicken stock cubes*
3 slices ginger 
2 tsp sesame oil
sweet dark soy sauce to serve (e.g. kecap manis)
sambal oelek* to serve
sliced cucumber to serve
sea salt

Chicken rice: 
¼ cup chicken skin and fat trimmings (remove these from the whole chicken or alternatively use some finely diced skin-on chicken thigh) 
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
2 cups jasmine rice 

Spring onion & ginger sauce:
extra spring onions as needed (see method below)
1 tbsp finely chopped ginger
1½ tsp sea salt
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp sesame oil

Steps

1. To prepare the chicken, remove as much excess skin and fat from the chicken as possible. Reserve the excess fat and skin trimmings for later. Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt.
2. Slice the dark green tops from the 6 spring onions and save the pale green and white part of the spring onion for the spring onion & ginger sauce. Place the dark green tops in a large stock pot along with the chicken, chicken stock and ginger. Set over medium-high heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce the heat to medium and gently simmer for 40-60 minutes or until just cooked (juices will run clear or pale pink when the joint is pierced with a knife). You’ll need to scoop off some of the foam that rises to the surface every so often. 
3. For the spring onion & ginger sauce, finely slice the reserved pale parts of the spring onion. You’ll need one cup of finely sliced spring onion, so add more spring onion (green and pale parts) as needed. Use a mortar and pestle to pound the spring onion, ginger and salt to a rough paste. Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil until hot (it’s hot when a wooden spoon causes bubbles to form when dipped into the oil) then carefully pour over the spring onion mixture.  Stir to combine and set aside until ready to serve.
4. In the meantime, make the chicken rice. Place the chicken trimmings into a saucepan over medium-high heat and cook for about 10 minutes or until you have a couple of tablespoons of fat and the chicken trimmings are golden brown. Remove and discard (or eat LOL) the chicken trimmings. Add the garlic into the chicken fat left in the pan and cook over a medium heat until the garlic is golden. Add the rice and stir vigorously to scrape up any of the chicken bits from the bottom of the pan. Ladle over 2½ cups of the chicken stock that your chicken is cooking in (top up the cooking liquid with some water if the chicken is no longer covered). Cook for 10 minutes or until the rice is just tender but still a little firm. Then cover with a lid, turn the heat off and rest for 10 minutes to allow the steam to finish cooking the rice. Use a fork to fluff up the rice before serving. 
5. To prepare the chicken to serve, transfer the chicken to a cutting board and allow to cool slightly. Cut the legs and wings off the chicken. Then remove the breast meat. Drizzle the chicken pieces with sesame oil and rub all over. Slice the chicken meat
6. Strain the chicken cooking broth and season with extra salt to taste.
7. Serve the chicken meat with the rice, spring onion & ginger sauce, sambal oelek, cucumber and a small bowl of the chicken cooking broth. Drizzle a little sweet soy sauce over the chicken meat just before serving.

Notes:
– Follow the packet instructions for your chicken stock cubes to make up 10 cups of chicken stock.
– Sambal oelek is a type of chilli paste you can find online or in the Asian aisle of your supermarket. You can also use Chinese chilli & garlic paste.