Steamed Chicken Rice

A simple yet sumptuous dish, this dish captivates my soul and is one of my favourites. The aroma itself is irresistible! The rice produces a tantalizing fragrance which is good even on its own! I love to make this at home as I can opt to use higher quality ingredients, whether it is the type of rice, spices or chicken, as it affects how this dish turns out. Trust me, once I master this dish, a visit to a chicken rice stall no longer appeals to me. In order to produce the rice that can be termed as ‘good on its own’, I use a mixture of butter and sesame oil to sauté the shallots / red onion. It is then lightly seasoned and cook with chicken broth. Every ingredients here enhance the flavor of the rice and should not be omitted. I developed this recipe though lots of tryouts in order to get the perfect ratio of butterfly, sesame oil etc so that it comes out just RIGHT. OH WAIT!!! Before I get into further details in making the rice, let’s start with the chicken first. I need the chicken broth to make the rice anyway. The rice is soooo good that I can’t resist to talk more about it 😉

I use a whole free range chicken and place in a pot filled with water about 3/4 full, 5 slices of ginger and 1 bunch of scallion.

Use few toothpicks to prick the chicken. Cook on medium low heat for half an hour or until the blood doesn’t ooze out when pricked with a tester. Turn the chicken every 10 minutes to make sure that it is thoroughly cooked. Use a ladle to remove scums consistently throughout the cooking process. I have tried using different heat setting to cook the chicken and medium low heat is my preferred choice. It produces surprisingly tender and moist chicken meat even for the part that is usually the driest. And also, do not overcook the chicken which will produce dry and coarse meat.

After half an hour, transfer the chicken to cold water immediately to prevent it from further cooking. This ensure that the chicken remains tender. By the way, that’s the chicken broth on the second picture below – looks good, right?

Meanwhile, prepare a pan to melt the butter. Once the butter is half melted, add in diced shallots/ red onions, 3 slices of ginger, 1 1/2 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 1/2 tablespoon of rice wine, 1 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 2 rice cups of washed rice in this sequence. Saute for few minutes until well- mixed and transfer to a rice cooker. Add in 2 3/4 rice cups of chicken broth. Press the ‘Start’ button to cook the rice. Simple, right?

Then, peel and cut the cucumber into slices. Place onto a large plate. Once the chicken is cooled down, transfer to a chopping surface. Cut the chicken into desired size. I prefer to debone the chicken. Refer to my recipe below on how to debone the chicken. Place the chicken on top of the sliced cucumbers.

Next, mix the soy sauce, brown sugar and sesame oil in a small mixing bowl. Microwave the mixture for few seconds or warm it on a pan over the stove to dissolve the brown sugar. Drizzle the soy sauce mixture all over the chicken. I set it aside for at least 5 minutes before serving so that the cucumbers and the chicken will absorb the soy sauce mixture and enhance its flavor.

This dish is incomplete without the specially made chilli sauce. It is extremely simple. Use a blender to process 10 dried chilli, 6 cloves of garlic, 3 tablespoon of lime juice, 1/2 teaspoon of castor sugar, a pinch of salt, 1 tablespoon of chicken broth and 1/4 cup of water for few minutes until it is well blended. Transfer to a clean small bowl.

As for the remaining broth, add in more water if you like. Heat it up, add in chopped scallions and seasoned with salt and pepper before serving.

Oh, here’s the RICE that I boasted so much about 🙂