One Pot Chicken Rice
Total time: 30 minutes (10 minutes preparation, 15 minutes cooking, 5 minute standing)
Serves: 4 - 6+
This recipe has the bold and punchy flavours of Hainanese Chicken Rice, but without the effort of poaching a whole chicken, reducing a master stock and committing to an all out labour-of-love.
Taking the best parts of Hainanese Chicken Rice and simplifying it (the chicken flavoured rice, soft delicate chicken and ginger sauce) - this recipe does not fail to deliver!
One Pot Chicken Rice recipe
Ingredients
Chicken thigh, bone-in: 4 thighs (~800g) and skin-on
Jasmine rice: 2 cups (uncooked)
Spring onion: 1 stalk, sliced into 1 inch batons
Ginger: 1 knob (half the knob finely julienned, the other half sliced)
Garlic: 1 clove, finely diced
Chicken stock: 2 1/2 cups (store bought)
Soy sauce: 1 tablespoon
Salt: Pinch
White pepper: To taste
Sauce as per Ginger and Spring Onion Sauce
To serve
Slice cucumber
Steamed broccoli
Method
Prepare the chicken by removing the chicken skin and fat. Set aside. Marinate the chicken lightly in a tablespoon of soy sauce and a pinch of white pepper.
Render the chicken skin and fat in a wide frying pan over medium heat. Remove the solids and remaining skin and fry the julienned ginger, spring onion and the garlic.
Add the rice (do not pre-wash) and remaining ginger and fry for another minute. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil over a medium-low heat.
Place the chicken on top of the rice and cover the pot. Simmer for 14 minutes and then remove from the heat.
Meanwhile, prepare the Ginger and Spring Onion Sauce (Combine 2 stalks finely sliced spring onion, 1 knob grated ginger, 1/4 cup grapeseed oil, 1/4 teaspoon table salt)
Let both the chicken and rice rest for 5 minutes with the lid on.
To serve, slice the chicken and place on top of a bowl of rice with the ginger spring onion sauce, chilli sauce and sliced cucumber.
Variations
If you want an even faster meal - you can skip rendering the fat and skin. However, you will miss out on a big flavour hit in the chicken rice.
Notes
Rice to Liquid Ratio: Normally when cooking Jasmine rice, you would have a Rice to Liquid ratio of 2:3. For example, if you were cooking 2 cups of rice, you would use 3 cups of liquid. However in this recipe, you will note that it is less. This is because there is liquid naturally in the chicken and that using the normal ratio will result in gluggy rice. From trial and error, the chicken adds the equivalent of about 1/2 a cup of liquid. If you were to reduce the rice to 1 1/2 cups of rice, you would only need 1 1/2 cups of liquid.