Hainanese Chicken Rice for my Malaysian Dude - step by step

this simple chicken dish is packed with so much flavor green onions and ginger and garlic and then served with all the condiments that just elevate this chicken to a whole different level and i'm gonna show you how to make it hey everyone i'm flo dude is behind the camera and we're all about simple food simple faith this hainanese chicken dish goes back many many years but the kids just love it and it has become a favorite that we make all the time this recipe can be found in my new cookbook chinese home style so let's get started we have a three pound chicken and i'm going to stuff it with all the aromatics garlic and ginger and green onions but first i am going to remove the butt from the chicken and we're going to use that for later this piece right here where all the fat is oh and any excess fat that you can take off and remove so let's just start here there's always a little piece of fat that hangs on either side of the butt so i'm going to take that off take the butt off and take this piece of fat off as well and we're going to fry that up later for the rice into the cavity i'm just going to stuff my green onions and i don't want to over stuff it because sometimes what happens is if it's too stuffed then it doesn't cook all the way through so i'm gonna try to loosely fit this green onion in there like that i have a total of four ounces of ginger but i only need two ounces right now for the chicken so i'm going to take this piece i'm just going to smash it a little bit and we're going to slice this up take half of this you're not half but part of it slice that up we're only using three cloves of garlic for this part of it we're saving the rest for later you just want to smash your garlic so that more flavor will come out okay we're gonna put as much of that in there as we can all the garlic and then maybe half the ginger and then the rest of the ginger we're just going to toss into the the water and that's it for the chicken all right so this is how we're just going to leave it it doesn't want to stay that's fine okay so before you get your chicken started bring a pot of water to boil i've added a tablespoon of a salt and i just used sea salt i filled the pot about two thirds the way full so you don't want it completely full because you need the chicken to go in there and the water will rise when you do that i'm gonna tuck the chicken wings just behind the shoulders okay and we're gonna drop this in there breast side up i'm going to put the remaining ginger in there and i'm going to immediately turn the heat down to a bare simmer it's got to be quite low you want the water to be still on top so this is still and we're going to poach this for about 50 to 55 minutes and i'm gonna put a lid on so meanwhile while that is poaching we will get the rest of our ingredients ready so while the chicken is cooking we are making the condiments and for our family the chicken would be nothing without the green onion and ginger condiment and that's why i make so much of it so i'm using six stalks of green onions that i'm going to chop now i'm going to grab my other knife alright see my kids and my husband my husband dude i don't know how you guys can eat all this but they love it and most of this will be gone for dinner tonight there will be hardly any leftover for tomorrow you all know that you can easily cut this in half it's not like in stone that you have to use all six stalks of green onion you can just make two even and just cut down on your ginger it's basically equal parts green onion and equal parts ginger so usually i would just peel the ginger but i scrubbed it pretty good today so i'm just gonna leave the ginger on and i'm gonna grate it into my green onions this is about two ounces of ginger and i can't even say it's a giant thumb size because it's not it's way bigger than our usual giant thumb pieces of ginger i love using the microplane for this yes i cheat i use whatever tools are at my disposal to make the kitchen job easier because you all know i can't be bothered with chopping up ginger into fine fine pieces or into like practically a paste see look at this you're not going to get that unless you have massive knife skills which i don't have and that's about all you get about half half ginger half green onions looking good i'm going to use the instant pot to make my rice you can also use the stovetop to make your rice but it's easier i think to do it using the instant pot so i'm going to show you how to do that turn the saute mode on and i'm going to adjust it to high first i want to heat up my oil for the ginger and green onion sauce or condiment before i work on my rice and i'm going to use the same pot so i don't have to clean multiple pots and that's another reason why i'm using the instant pot while i'm waiting for my pot to heat up i'm just going to prepare my garlic so i'm just going to run it through the garlic press and i need three cloves and this is going into the rice this is not going into the condiments okay i am adding about two tablespoons of vegetable oil you just want a neutral oil here wait for that to heat up a little bit until you start to see it smoke a little bit i'm going to add half a teaspoon of kosher salt to the green onion and ginger if you're doing this on a stovetop make sure you're using a heavy sauce pan maybe at least a three quart sauce pan and i'm just gonna put the oil in just cooks it a little bit and we're going to stir this up i think that hot oil just infuses all the flavors yeah it does stick together too oh my goodness it smells so so good again if there was smell-o-vision i could share it all with you the pot is still hot i'm gonna add my chicken fat remember that fat we saved from earlier and we're just going to render this fat until we get about two tablespoons of fat oil flavor i want to move the chicken fat around a little bit to make sure that all the sides are getting cooked and we're getting all the juices from the fat out as much as we can i find with the instant pot it's easier to do it on the sides because it's not completely flat at the bottom just let that do its thing meanwhile make sure you prepare your rice so i'm using jasmine rice i have three rice cups of rice that i've already rinsed and drained all right i think that's all i'm going to get out of there approximately a tablespoon or so but i need two tablespoons so what do i do right can everybody see right that's about a tablespoon of oil okay so i'm just going to add another tablespoon of vegetable oil whatever oil you're using okay but we do want that chicken fat in there because that's where all that flavor is and even though we're adding some oil there's still lots of flavor so i am going to toss in my garlic and i put the chicken fat in there i'm just going to let that cook for a few seconds moving it into the fat [Music] okay you don't want it to burn so we're going to immediately put our clean rice in there and let the saute until all the rice is a bit toasty we don't want the rice to stick to the bottom because if it's sticky at the bottom the instant pot is going to freak out and think that something is burning so just keep moving this rice around so it doesn't stick at the bottom then we're going to turn it off until our chicken is done and we're going to use the broth for the liquid in this rice this is not your average white rice people no this is rice that goes with your hainan chicken all right i'm gonna cancel just let this sit here for a little bit until the chicken is ready and there's still about i think 15 minutes for the chicken and you may want to check on the chicken every now and then to make sure that that water is just staying still and it didn't like start bubbling and boiling again if you let the water boil again your chicken will cook faster and then it might be overcooked and you don't want that you want the chicken to be perfect and that's another reason why i prefer making the whole chicken on the stove top versus making the chicken in the instant pot because i have way more control over when that chicken is done and to take it out of the water immediately all right oh it smells so good i have a bowl of ice water that i've filled halfway if you do it in the sink you can add a little bit more water we are going to shock this chicken so that it doesn't continue cooking i'm going to pull this out so it's easier to grasp just leave it in the soup for now all right add a little bit more water until that's covered and we're going to leave it in for only 10 minutes and that is not going to chill your chicken until it's cold it'll still be hot it'll just have stopped the cooking so the proportion of rice to broth today is going to be one part rice and one and a quarter part broth i'm going to add just a little bit to begin with and make sure that the bottom is all scraped up that there isn't anything sticky at the bottom so i find with the instant pot is if there's anything sticky at the bottom it's going to give you an overheat or burn message and that's not good if you're doing this with a rice cooker i'm assuming that you sauteed your rice and garlic on the stove and you're transferring it to your rice cooker which is perfect i'm also making sure that all the rice is pushed down and will be covered with liquid nothing is sticking to the sides of the pot because if any rice kernels are sticking to the sides they're not getting cooked properly so in your rice cooker or your instant pot you should have these lines they correspond with the rice cup that came with your pot so i am using again one to one and a quarter ratio which i will need it to go up to the fourth line so that's what i'm counting on here if you're doing this on your stovetop you're going to need a little bit more broth so just keep that in mind i'm a dough head so that instruction was actually for stovetop one to one and a quarter ratio for the instant pot is only one to one i don't know what i'm thinking so i'm taking out a cup putting a lid on locking it into place making sure the sealing knob is on sealing and we're going to cook this on high pressure for four minutes and let it natural release for 10 minutes and that means your pot will still be on keep warm during those 10 minutes and then turn it off i have an english cucumber that i'm just slicing up and we're going to line our plate with it or platter and we're going to place our chicken on top of it and all the sauces are going to soak into the cucumber and that's pretty much the only time my kids really really love cucumber lining up the cucumbers just have them kind of overlay each piece you can cut them into whatever shapes you want this way is better [Music] okay now for the chicken the fun part okay we're going to remove the chicken now from the ice water i'm putting it on a board with hananese chicken when you go to a restaurant you are either going to get it with all the bones still attached and then you just eat around the bones that are all chopped up or some restaurants will serve it boneless and that's awesome i like to actually serve it boneless partly because i can never chop a chicken the way they do in the chinese restaurants so i'm going to show you how to de-bone a chicken i'm going to cut off the legs first i'm going to slice in between the breast and the thigh we'll slice on both sides and in here you will find that there are some juices and as you can see it's still piping hot inside it's not cold okay you're going to cut where that joint is there's also a piece of bone right here so we're going to cook cook we're going to cut just around it and this is where we'll slice okay there's cartilage there so that's why the knife is can easily cut through that and we'll do that the same on the other side i'm going to cut the drumstick off the thigh and if you hold it like this cut straight down there's another cartilage that you can cut right through same with the other side okay i'm going to do the drumstick first i'm going to run my knife around the top part here because that's where there's some tendon like this part here that really is not great to eat then i'm going to take a slice down one side of the drumstick and just keep going oops there's also a bone in here like a very thin bone i'm trying to avoid okay so that's a thin bone here nope that wasn't the bone where is it lost it any case trust me there's a bone there so what i will do with these bones actually is throw them back into the chicken broth and boil it some more to add some more flavor to it and then i'll store that broth in the freezer for future use or save it for tomorrow and have like soup noodles or whatever wherever i need like asian style chicken broth i will use that oh we don't forget the jerk oh or make joke with it chicken congee so good with this broth the rice is now cooked the four minutes are up and we're going to let it natural release for 10 minutes i'm going to slice up the chicken just inches smaller lengths take that i usually like to put it all the dark meat on one side okay so for the thigh turn it over where the bone is and what you want to do is slice it where the bone is right there okay and i'm just going to roughly take this bone out get it underneath it the and the meat should just kind of fall right off it's not tough at all okay and you're left with this lovely piece of thigh that is still holding its shape and we're going to slice it thinly as well and we'll do the other side okay now i'm going to remove the wing and again if you hold the chicken up just slice right through which make a liar out of me can't find it you can do it i have faith in you there we are okay i don't know what else i cut i got more than the chicken wing i think but i'm just going to cut the joint between the wing and the drumette that should be fairly easy i don't know if you caught that and i'm going to leave this tip oh i'm going to take the tip off although some people like eating the tip leave it on okay we're just going to leave it on okay put it on the side along with the drumette same on the other side now we have the breast left okay so right in the middle of the breast is the breastbone so you want to cut on one side of it and you can feel it just slice down and we're just going to peel it off the bone you see just gently take it off look how juicy that is that's the only time i don't mind eating chicken breast is if it's really juicy we're gonna slice this as well into small pieces i don't know if you can see how moist it is you see it's perfect so this chicken was exactly three pounds so if it's more than that like a three and a half pound i would add another 10 minutes to your cooking and i really wouldn't use a chicken that's too much bigger than that i think at the butcher they were offering me five pound six pound organic chickens and i'm like yeah no thank you because i have no idea how much time it would take to poach those for one and there's no way we can get through a six pound chicken it's like a small turkey [Music] okay there's one breast and the other all right so it's 10 minutes done on a natural release and i'm going to turn it off but i don't have a clean finger so i'm going to ask dude to cancel it thank you all right the last of the chicken breasts all right all right okay almost ready to serve last few things i have some ground white pepper just a few pinches we're just going to sprinkle it kind of all over the chicken and i'm going to mix one tablespoon of light soy sauce regular soy sauce whatever you have and one tablespoon of sesame oil i'm going to stir that around and just blend it as possible then we're going to drizzle this right onto all the chicken my goodness looks so so good i have some cilantro here just to pretty it up i'm just going to use a few sprigs i understand that not everybody loves cilantro so if you don't like it don't use it you know what it's nice to just garnish it but you don't have to eat it but it does make it prettier okay the rice is ready everything is ready just on time so that's why this recipe is so easy to do because it's you're not like not working but at the same time everything just gets done and you get a yummy meal at the end oh my goodness this rice that smells so good all right and see how it's yellowy that's from the toasting of the rice and also from the chicken broth all right what piece do you want dude i'll do a little bit of both all right oh make sure you get some cucumber in there oh yeah that's a must and some breast meat it doesn't look so great plated sorry dude oh it's we're not about the fanciness here all right and what else don't skimp on this don't hold out on there all right there is that enough all right all right no more you're hilarious let's get to it there we go are you all ready for yes have you had dinner not yet huh this is the taste with dude i am not uncle roger but i am from malaysia so back to just regular dude now malaysians eat with fork and spoon it is the most efficient way to eat most every type of food especially this one when it comes to rice and the different elements you bring it together so efficient let me show you and using that spoon you can bring it all together in one perfect bite perfect delivery system for all the awesomeness to get some cucumber in there and rice see perfect bite into the mouth that goes so good the reason why the ginger and onion is so crucial is because it just brings in that pop of flavor that bit of spiciness from the ginger with the texture of the nice juicy chicken the crunch of the cucumber and the aromatic rice guys and it just mixes it all in there so much flavor that's why you got to have it with the condiment if you don't have the condiment don't eat it at all don't be wasteful must have condiment lots of it so as you can see it really is a very simple recipe that you can do it's not quick but it is simple a lot of people also serve it with a chili sauce on the side which you're free to do we don't often eat it with the chili sauce but if you like that by all means both this recipe and the hainanese chicken leg recipe are in the cookbook and for that recipe check it out i will see you over there

Channel: Flo Lum

Views: 1,188,984

Keywords: simpleordinaryjoyful, flomade, simple ordinary joyful, flo lum

Id: rGmERSKSETY

Length: 27min 42sec (1662 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021