This weekend we are trying a Hainanese Chicken🍗 Rice 🍚 recipe at home! This recipe takes a while so we recommend that you make it on a day where you have a bit more time to cook. Although it is mostly hands-off – the total cooking time is 3.5 hours 😅 We sous-vide a whole organic free-range chicken, made the rice with the chicken stock, along with three different dipping sauces too!
We asked a friend for a recipe… but he only gave us the ingredients with no quantities on how much of each ingredient to use 😛 So we looked up a few recipes and improvised a bit… haha so here is our interpretation below.
Ingredients
For the Chicken
1 Whole Chicken (or Bone-In, Skin On Chicken Breast and Wings)
1 (3 inch) piece fresh ginger, sliced into thin rounds
4 scallions, chopped into 2-inch pieces
4 Pandan Leaves, chopped into 2-inch pieces
1 Tsp Sesame Oil
1 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Tsp Rock Sugar
For The Sauces
2 Tbsp Sambal
1 Tsp Lime Juice
2 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Chicken drippings
1/4 Tsp Rock Sugar
1/2 cup of chopped scallions (green and white parts)
1/4 cup of grated ginger
1/8 cup of neutral oil
1/2 tsp of salt or more to taste
For The Rice
2-3/4 cups Chicken Broth
2-1/4 cups Jasmine Rice
Fresh Cilantro for garnish
Instructions
For the chicken
- Set a Sous Vide water bath for 150F.
- Generously Season the chicken breast with salt and place it in a large vacuum seal bag with the ginger, pandan leaves, and scallions.
- In a small bowl, mix the sesame Oil, Soy Sauce, and Rock Sugar for the marinade then pour over chicken in the vacuum bag.
- Place the bag into the water bath and set a timer for 3.5 hours.
- Remove chicken from water bath and reserve the liquid. When ready to serve, remove the wings from the chicken breast and cut the chicken from the breast bone, leaving the skin intact. Slice each chicken breast into large medallions.
For the Sauces
Hot Sauce
Mix together the Sambal and lime juice in a small bowl. Add more lime juice to taste if required.
Sweet Soy
Mix together the Light Soy Sauce, Chicken drippings, and rock sugar in a small bowl.
Ginger Scallion Sauce *Our Favorite*
- Put the chopped scallions into a heat proof bowl and place the ginger on top. Sprinkle salt on top of the ginger.
- Heat the oil in a sauce pan over medium high heat until shimmering and pour into the bowl. Let the oil sizzle over the ingredients and then mix well. You can let the sauce sit at room temperature for a bit to let the flavours develop.
For the Rice
- Place the rice in a fine mesh strainer and rinse with cool running water until the water running off the strainer is no longer cloudy. Drain the rice well and transfer to a large saucepan with the chicken broth and any remaining chicken drippings.
- Cover the pot and bring the mixture to a rapid boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook at a rapid simmer for 7 minutes. If the mixture looks dry, add water as needed. You should still see some bubbles forming form the water at this point. Reduce the heat to low and steam for 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let sit, covered for 5 additional minutes. Season with salt to taste.
