Authentic Homemade Chinese Food - Chicken with ginger scallion, warmly scented with ginger and steeped in its own chicken broth-
A homemade chinese food that is easy.
It is a soul-soothing dish.
Chinese New Year is just around the corner. I’m all about easy and effortless recipes, especially now I am about eight months pregnant.
This delicious easy Chinese food recipe is a Cantonese favourite. The Hainanese Chicken recipe requires a little bit of elbow grease, but then afterwards it's all smooth sailing after that.
Chicken is always served during Chinese New Year because it is the symbol of unity and family. Usually, steam or poached chicken with head and feet is served during our traditional dinner to further emphasize the concept of union and rebirth.
This post is all about a delicious Homemade Chinese Food Classic: Hainanese Chicken
Although Hainanese Chicken is from the Hainan province in China, it originated in Singapore from immigrants from Hainan. It is still well-loved and has an advocated among followers of Cantonese people.
Traditionally Hainanese Chicken is served with three different dipping sauces and broth on the side. And like I said, we are keeping it easy, so we are only going to focus on the most important sauce: the ginger scallion sauce. The most common sauce we Cantonese love to eat with chicken.
Why You’ll Love This!
This easy homemade Chinese food recipe is my ultimate comfort food, and once you try it, you’ll see what the obsession is about.
- Easy - it is a slow-braised chicken in a stock pot, and lightly seasoned.
- Healthy - Since this Hainanese Chicken is slow-poached in its beautiful water, it's much healthier than fried chicken or pan-fried chicken. Most chicken recipes require oil but this one requires little oil to none.
- Delicious - ginger and chicken go hand in hand, and it's a soul-soothing taste. Try it and you'll understand why!
- Authentic Cantonese dish- if you're interested in a popular homemade Cantonese dish, this is the one. All Cantonese moms know this recipe!
Hainanese Chicken Rice
This homemade authentic chinese food recipe is so good you’ll be shocked how easy it is to make! Using the same broth that cooked the chicken in is used to make the rice. When it is finish cooking, you’ll open up to a luscious and glossy pot of rice.
Normally in restaurants they use a lot of oil and chicken fat to make it super tasty. In order to get this to be a healthy homemade chine food recipe, we skim the soup of its fat by taking out the skin and defatting the top layer of oil in the soup. But if you’re a person about flavour, then pour on all that glory and work a little harder the next day to burn all those extra calories off.
Cooking methods
Now there are two known ways of making Hainanese Chicken. First, the chicken and rice are steamed together.
The second way is chicken is poached in its water, and the rice is cooked separately using the chicken broth. We will be using the second method. A little more work, but I like platting it separately with the rice sticking to the chicken.
Pro Tip#1 - Choice of Chicken
The most obvious ingredient for this Hainanese Chicken is the chicken. Try finding fresh, free range chicken because it has a far better taste compared to the regular caged ones. And if you don’t have a choice, go ahead with the usual supermarket chicken.
For my recipe, I exfoliate my chicken. That’s right – they get a spa treatment. I use large sea salt to rub the chicken. Table salt or anything similar in its size is too small for the exfoliation. Perhaps keep your expensive sea salt for other use, but I would recommend kosher salt.
Oh and wear gloves during the exfoliation to protect your hands!
When you’re in the Asian grocery store, there’s many Chinese cooking wine. Two of my favourite I like to use are these two: Qian Hu Chinese Shaohsing Rice Cooking Wine and Premium Shaoxing Rice Chinese Cooking Wine.
Pro Tip #2 - Cooking temperature
It's important to bring the water to boil before you dip your chicken in. We do this so the skin of the chicken contracts. If it is not boiling the chicken skin won't stick to the flesh and eventually it will fall of the chicken.
When the chicken is inside cooking, it has to be at a low simmer. A hard boil will make the skin tough. We want a juicy bouncy flesh which is why the cooking temperature needs to be a steady low simmer.
Pro Tip #3 - Ice bath
The ice bath is essential for bouncy chicken meat. When the hot chicken meets instant cold water, the meat immediately contracts so all the juices stay inside the meat and do not evaporate or dry out quickly. This step cannot be missed.
Pro Tip #4 - Chopping the chicken
Normally in Cantonese whole chicken dishes, we always chop the bones.
In order to chop the chicken with the bones and not get blades of bones broken in the meat, there are two important factors: knife sharpness and hitting it hard.
The knife needs to be sharp in order to get a clean hit. So sharpen that knife up. Also, I recommend a butcher knife with a good weight on it.
The most important part: don't hesitate when you raise your knife for that hard hit. When you use a knife and put some force into it, the bones will cut right through and not be smashed into tine brittle pieces. So don't second guess it. Practice makes perfect, and make sure your fingers or anything is nearby when you do this!
Hainanese Chicken with Ginger Scallion
Ingredients
Poached Chicken
- 1.3 kg free range and hormone free chicken
- 4 Litre water until water slightly covers the chicken in the pot
- 1.5 tbsp kosher salt or salt rock
- 2 scallion
- 7 slices of ginger
- 2 garlic clove smashed
Chicken Marinate
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp Chinese rice cooking wine
Ginger Scallion Sauce
- 4 tbsp ginger grated
- 2 scallion wash and chopped
- ¼ cup canola oil
- 1 tsp sea salt
Hainanese Rice
- 2 tbsp canola oil or 2 tbsp chicken render fat
- 2 cm ginger grated
- 1 garlic clove grated
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 cups jasmine rice
- 2 cups chicken broth broth used to make the chicken
Garnish
- 1 cucumber sliced thinly
Instructions
Cleaning the Chicken
- Take the whole chicken and give it a good wash. Pat dry with paper towel.
- Exfoliation: wearing gloves, take 1 tsp of salt on the gloves and rub the chicken evenly. Make sure you get area like under the wing and inside the cavity. Rub the chicken for a good 10 minutes with salt. Initially the chicken skin is wrinkly, but after 10 minutes of salt rubbing the skin should appear smooth and glowing.
- chicken marinate: combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, and Chinese cooking wine together. Using a pastry brush, brush the chicken with the marinate and let it sit.
Cooking the Chicken
- Bring a large stock pot on to the stove and add the 4L of water. Add the scallion, ginger and garlic. Bring the water to boiling hot. grabbing the chicken by the neck, dip the chicken into the water and bring it back out. Repeat 4 times. After the 4th time, place the whole chicken (breast submerged first in the water) into the pot with the lid on top. Bring the pot to a very low simmer for 35 minutes. After 35 minutes turn off the heat but let the chicken sit in the broth for an additional 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, take a large bowl and fill it with water (about 2L of water) and 1L of ice. Once the chicken finish cooking, immediately take the chicken out and place it in the ice bath.
- Leave the chicken in the ice bath until meat is firm and cool. About 10 minutes. Take the chicken out and drain excess liquid.
Ginger Scallion Sauce
- Meanwhile, make the ginger scallion sauce. In a deep heat proof bowl, place the grated ginger, chopped scallion, and salt in the bowl. Use a spoon and mix well.
- In a pan, heat the canola oil until you start to see it smoke. Turn off the heat and carefully pour it over the ginger and scallion. Make sure you place the bowl in a sink because once the oil hits the ginger it will splatter a bit of oil.
Hainanese Rice
- In a pan or a pot with a lid, heat up the chicken fat or oil. Add the ginger, and garlic. Cook, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in the rice and fry gently until glossy. Add chicken stock and place the lid on top. Cook the rice on low for 17 minutes, and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Serving Hainanese Chicken
- Take the chicken using a sturdy knife, chop the chicken into bite size pieces. Traditionally we chop the chicken with the bones interacted. Lay all the pieces on a large plate.
- Repeat the chicken marinate again, and brush the marinate on top of the chicken again.
- Fluff up the rice and serve with thinly sliced cucumbers with the side of the Ginger Scallion Sauce.
