Date: Mar 13, 2012
Received a call during mid-day. A woman's voice "Can you cook tonight?". So, the man has to do the job!
Drove into Clementi Mall, visited the NTUC there, and picked up a Chicken. Let's do something simple tonight.
When I highlight the word simple, it really means simple. Hahaha
COOK THE CHICKEN
1. A whole fat Chicken. Depends on you, you can choose a Kampung chicken.
2. Green onions. Funny, lately, I can never find big fat green onions. All very small stalks. Cut it into bigger chunks.
3. Cut some ginger slices. About 8-10 slices. Depends how you want the soup tasted.
4. Get a tall cooking pot. Put water until you can cover the whole chicken. Give it a bit more.
5. Put Chicken into the pot with water. (NOTE that NO ONE mentioned about turning on the stove! YES. NO FIRE yet!)
6. Chicken should covered by the water entirely.
7. Pour in the green onions, and ginger.
8. Now, then you turn on the stove. Maximum power. Bring the pot of Chicken to NEARLY BOILED. Yes, it is about 14-18 minutes, depending on how big is your chicken, and how big is your pot of water.
9. When the water start boiling like this, you can turn the stove to medium power. You can remove those white bubbles in the soup.
10. Then, TURN OFF THE STOVE (NO FIRE!!!!). YES, TURN it OFF! Cover the pot, with the chicken inside. And then you wait for 30-40 minutes. The chicken inside the pot will still be slowly cooked by the almost boiling water. It takes about 30 minutes to let is REST. Yes, it is just like I wrapped the steak in the aluminium foil and let it continue slow cook.
COOK THE CHICKEN RICE
Of course, you must have a chicken rice to accompany your Hainanese Chicken.
1. Prepare two cup of rice (for 4 pax). Wash and put the water in it.
2. Throw some finely chopped garlic in there.
3. You know the chicken back side, there is always the fatty fatty fat part? Save those.
3. This is what I called the chicken fat. Cut and dice it small.
4. Put the chicken fat into the rice pot.
5. Dice some ginger too. put it into the rice pot.
6. All done. cover the rice cooker and cook the rice. Once done, this is your chicken rice.
7. Very nice. You suppose to use the pure chicken fat, but I lazy, so you will see the chicken skin as well! haha but it is very nice frangrance. DONE!
BACK TO THE CHICKEN
1. Open the pot! Our chicken is fully cooked!
2. Slowly scope the chicken out on to a plate.
3. I dont have white cooking wine. So, I am using the Hua Tiao Chiew. (Hua Tiao Wine).
4. Pour the Hua Tiao Chinese Wine ON TO the cooked chicken. Spread it across the whole chicken. This is like paint it with the Chinese wine.5.
5. Pinch a lot of fine sea salt, and spread it the whole chicken. Use your hand to mob the salt onto the chicken without tearing the skin.
6. Once done, put the chicken under the fan. (if don't have, use a hand fan).
7. Let the chicken COOL DOWN for 10-15 minutes. (2nd stage of cooling down).
PREPARING THE CHICKEN DIP SAUCE
1. Fine chopped garlic.
2. Fine chopped ginger.
3. Fine chopped green onions.
4. Distributed the ingredients onto the sauce plate.
5. Pinch some sea salt into the sauce plate.
6. Pour some cooking oil into a bowl.
7. Microwave with high heat for 2 minutes.
8. Pour the hot boiling cooking oil onto the sauce plate with ginger, green onions, garlic and salt.
9. You will hear the cooking oil sound, chiiiiii chiiii chiiiiiiishhhhhhh and there is your ginger garlic sauce.
CUTTING THE CHICKEN
Under the strong fan blowing for 10 minutes. Chicken skin shrink and wrapped the chicken nicely. The sauce that comes out is both chicken oil, chicken soup and the chinese wine with the salty salty taste.
Look at the chicken from the other side. It is yellowish color and it is very nice and tender.
Invest in a pair of scissors. We shall use this to cut the chicken.
Cut Cut Cut!
You can see the white tender chicken meat inside. Very tender. Sweet and juicy.
There you go, my version of the Hainanese Chicken.
Of course, you put everything together, you get this... Btw, the pot of soup is chicken stocks. You can keep it for other dish, or you can drink it. Pinch salt and white pepper to make it tasty.
So, what is the verdict? Very nice.
So, who say you can only eat Hainanese Chicken in restaurant or food court? You can cook it yourself! If you look at the steps, it is very easy to cook. The main idea is, to cook the chicken from COLD water. This is the same as cooking the mashed potato that I blogged some time ago. So, the trick is to bring the water to "JUST" boiling hot. Then, cover it, and let it simmer there for 30-40 minutes. This is to slow cooking the chicken and bring all parts to be same tenderness.
Then, you take out the chicken from the water, cover it with Hua Tiao Chinese Wine and salt. And let the fan blow it for 10 minutes to cool down. This is for the skin to shrink and wrapped the meat nicely. Then, cut the chicken and serve. See SO EASY!
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