Hainanese Chicken Rice: The ideal Uncomplicated One Pot Chicken and Rice Recipe

Posted by Thomas Shaw on January 20th, 2021



If you’re searching for your next hands-off, scrumptious one pot dinner, that is it: Hainanese chicken rice. Get extra info about ข้าวมันไก่อร่อย


Have you ever had Hainanese chicken rice just before? Are you as obsessed with it as I am? I’m guessing the answer is no because I have a lifelong, deep obsession with chicken rice.

It is my ultimate comfort food, my all-time-favorite go to meal, my version of Anton Ego’s mom’s ratatouille. You know, the scene in inside the Pixar movie where Anton is taken back to his mom’s kitchen and she serves him ratatouille and all is correct with all the world. That is Hainanese chicken rice for me.

Chicken and Rice
All cultures have some sort of chicken and rice. The Japanese have oyakodon, Latin Americans have arroz con pollo, and Southeast Asians (and Hainanese people) have Hainanese chicken rice. Like most chicken and rice dishes, it’s basic at heart: poached chicken and seasoned rice served with a range of sauces.

Like a lot of immigrant adapted foods, you will find basically a bunch of diverse kinds of Hainanese chicken rices: Singaporean, Malaysian, Vietnamese, and Thai. Increasing up, it was a staple in our house. Chicken rice would be the food that may bring me back to my childhood and transport me to a few of my favored memories as an adult. I’m not embarrassed to say that chicken rice is my everything.

What exactly is Hainanese chicken rice?
Hainanese chicken is deceptively very simple but somehow complex. It originated in Hainan in Southern China, but its spiritual home is Singapore, exactly where you will discover renditions of the ever popular dish everywhere, from hawker stands to higher end hotels.

I would fight for the death to say that Hainanese chicken rice is definitely the most effective rendition of chicken and rice on the market. It is so humble, so flavorful, and so pure. At its heart, Hainanese chicken rice is just that: chicken and rice.

The chicken is poached within a simple yet flavorful broth scented with ginger, garlic, and scallions and is silky, firm, and tastes just like the most ideal chicken you will ever have. The rice that comes with it should really stand on its own: filled with chicken flavor, slicked with fat, savory, and fragrant.

What’s so unique regarding the rice?
You have got to taste it to think it, but I assume the secret to why Hainanese chicken rice is so good is the rice. As well as the secret to the rice is chicken fat. Any fantastic cook knows that once you cook rice in broth, the broth infuses the inside in the grain, giving it extra flavor. Many cultures do that, like how Mexican rice is cooked in tomatoes and onions. Chicken rice goes one step further by frying uncooked rice in chicken fat with garlic, shallots, and ginger ahead of cooking in chicken broth, giving the rice one more layer of toasty, aromatic deliciousness. The rice ought to be glossy, luscious and filled with flavor.

The very best chicken rice is definitely the one you like creating
You'll find a lot of Hainanese chicken rice recipes that contact for 24 hour (or more) cures along with other extremely difficult methods. It doesn’t need to be this way, specially if you just want very good chicken rice and you are not competing with a dozen other chicken rice hawkers at a industry. It is the rice that you require to pay cautious focus to, and that’s an easy factor that does not take significantly added time.

Personally, I love producing chicken rice, I discover it therapeutic somehow. But from time to time I just need to eat chicken and rice with no cooking a whole chicken. This simple recipe is for all those occasions: skin-on boneless chicken thighs and rice are cooked in one pot for ease and fewer dishes to wash. Win-win!

The secret to good Hainanese chicken rice
That is a fundamental one pot Hainanese chicken rice with all the flavor and none from the fuss. The recipe starts with chicken fat. If you’re like me and love chicken rice and make it around the standard, you will would like to preserve a jar of rendered chicken fat within the fridge. Even if you are not like me and don’t would like to make chicken rice each and every day on the week, you will would like to hold a jar of chicken fat in the fridge. Chicken fat is PURE FLAVOR.

Chicken fat is what tends to make the rice part of chicken rice taste so great. But, if you don’t have any chicken fat, do not worry, toasting your rice in any fat is going to provide it a glossy, delicious flavor coat. The key is cooking the ginger, garlic, and shallots in fat to ensure that the aromatics release their deliciousness in to the rice.

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Thomas Shaw

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Thomas Shaw
Joined: March 17th, 2018
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