Chicken Rice Recipe
Ingredients
1 whole chicken
Finely chopped garlic
Thin strips of ginger
2-3 pandan leaves
(5-6 persons)
The first step to most cooking (personally) is to select the best ingredients. Best does not mean the most expensive but means they are fresh and well-prepared. In chicken rice, the chicken would of course be the star of the dish. It is important that you select a chicken that you like to eat. Some prefer Kampong chicken, some Sakura chicken, some Halal chicken, some prefer fresh chicken. It’s a matter of preference; but an advice would be to choose whole chicken and not get chicken parts. The taste is just somehow different to me.
Once you bought the chicken and other ingredients, it preparation time.
1. Wash the chicken. Cut away the excess fats and head and feet. Remember to wash the inner of the chicken and remove the unwanted stuff. (The fats may be used as an extra ingredient for the rice but if you are health cautious then it can be omitted. Remember to cut the fats into very small pieces.)
2. Use 2-3 small cloves of garlic and chop them up fine.
3. Cut 7-8 thin strips of ginger
4. Get 2-3 pandan leaves and wash them thoroughly
Firstly, get a soup pot that would be able to fit the whole chicken and fill the pot with water. The water should be at a level where it could cover the chicken when its placed in the pot. Bring the water to a boil (you can add a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of cooking oil into the pot). Put the chicken into the pot once the water is boiling; then turn the flame down to moderate low and put the lid on. Cook for 20-25min.
Thereafter, take the chicken out of the pot and put it on a plate and rub some salt around the whole chicken (not too much; just a little will do); wait for it to cool. (Do NOT throw the chicken soup away.) In the meantime while the chicken is cooling down, you can prepare the rice.
For the rice, you can use 3-4 cups of rice. Wash the rice once to rid it of impurities.
After that, take a wok or a saucepan and put it over a small flame. Put some sesame oil (about 2 tablespoons) into the wok and let it heat up. It should take less than 20 seconds. Put the garlic into the wok and stir fry the garlic to expose the flavor, then add the ginger slices and stir it evenly. If you are using the chicken fats, you can add it in as well. Reduce the flame to a very small one and stir the mix evenly for 30 seconds or so. You know you are done when you can smell the various flavors.
Pour the mixture into the rice and mix the rice evenly. Tie the pandan leave into knot and place it into the rice pot as well.
If you look back at the chicken soup, you would notice that the is quite some oil floating on the top of the pot. Use a soup ladle and gently scoop the oil together with the soup and pour it into the rice pot. Try to remove as much oil as possible from the soup for the rice. This makes the rice flavorful with the chicken soup as a base for the rice. Use your own measure of soup for the rice as you would when cooking rice normally. **Note: If the soup is still hot, do not cook the rice immediately. Let the rice pot mixture cool down a bit before cooking.)
We are pretty much done. Now all that is left is to cut the chicken and serve it up on a large plate. My preference is to have my chicken rice meal with a dash of light soya sauce + sesame oil mix and superior dark soya sauce. I am not a big chicken rice chilli fan, hence I don’t know the recipe for the chilli. (Consult my mom if you want to know. :P)
