Hainanese Chicken Rice is one of the most popular dishes in Singapore and Malaysia. Specially prepared rice served with tender and juicy chicken, and complete with the right dipping sauce. Hmm, what’s not to love. This recipe is created by immigrants from the island of Hainan in Southern China.
What is so special about Hainanese Chicken Rice?
Hainanese Chicken Rice is fragrance rice cooked in a special paste. It is then served with succulent poached or steamed chicken. In addition, we garnish it with fresh cucumber and tomatoes on the sides. Also, we prepare dipping sauce for the chicken, such as dark soy sauce, special chilli sauce, and ground ginger sauce.
Preparing Spice Paste is Time Consuming
We enjoy preparing the spice paste for chicken rice. Firstly, we fry chicken fat to extract the chicken oil. Then grind ginger, garlic, shallot and other spices with a mortar and pestle. We then mix in chicken oil to form a sticky spice paste. We then stir-fry the paste for an extended period of time, until the paste achieved desired consistency and fragrance. To get a thicker paste, we filter out excess oil.
Now that we have the spice paste, we can cook the rice in the water or chicken broth combined with the fragrant spice paste.
Authentic Instant Spice Paste You Should Try
If you have never used instant spice paste in your cooking, you definitely should give it a try. It will save you time in preparation from raw ingredients. This way you spend less time cooking a delicious dish and more time enjoying the dish with family and friends.
There are many different brands of spice paste for Hainanese Chicken Rice. Look for natural flavours in the paste. The artificial flavour ones are not going to taste the same.
There are many different ingredients used in the paste. If you are allergic to a certain food, remember to look at the ingredients list when shopping for the paste.
It is very easy to prepare and cook Hainanese Chicken Rice using instant spice paste. Follow the cooking instructions on the packet and see how easy it is. Below is a summary of the process.
Check here for easy ways to cook the tender and juicy chicken to serve with Hainanese chicken rice.
Equipment Recommended for Cooking Hainanese Chicken Rice
Kitchen Scale: Use a digital kitchen scale to accurately measure the ingredient used.
Rice Cooker: Use an automatic rice cooker, large enough for 500g uncooked rice (at least 5 rice cooker cups of uncooked rice). Note that the rice cooker cup is different from the US measuring cup.
Ingredients and Preparation
- 1 packet of instant Hainanese Chicken Rice paste
- 500g (3 cups) uncooked rice
- 600 ml water (600 g)
- 2 tablespoon margarine
- 2 pandan leaves (Optional), tear apart along the stem.
Cooking Instructions
- Wash the uncooked rice until the water runs clear to get rid of excess starch
- Empty the rice into a rice cooker or steamer, then add in water.
- Now add in the Hainanese Chicken Rice paste and margarine, and mixed well.
- Add in optional pandan leaves and then cook the mixture in a rice cooker.
- Serve the cooked fragrant rice together with chicken, cucumber, tomatoes, special chilli sauce, soy sauce and ginger sauce.
Hainanese Chicken Rice served with cucumber and tomatoes
Hainanese Chicken Rice
Ingredients
- A packet of instant Hainanese Chicken Rice paste
- 500 g uncooked rice
- 600 ml water
- 2 tablespoon margarine
- 2 pandan leaves Optional
Instructions
- Wash the uncooked rice until water runs clear to get rid of excess starch
- Empty the rice into rice cooker or steamer, add in water
- Add in the Hainanese Chicken Rice paste and the margarine. Mixed well.
- Add the pandan leaves and put the mixture to cook.
- Once cooked, served with chicken, cucumber, tomatoes, special chilli sauce, soy sauce and ginger sauce
Notes
