Hainanese chicken rice

Hainanese chicken rice or simply chicken rice as called in Singapore. One of the easiest and yet super awesome food I ever tried in Singapore. Here is my try to replicate same. Thanks to many blogs and videos on youtube for this recipe.

Its a very simple dish, they serve boiled chicken at room temperature along with dipping sauce and hot steamed rice cooked in chicken broth. Simple isn't it. Actual or I may say authentic recipe demands full chicken with skin, however I had some leftover un-skinned chicken breasts to go with. So I used them instead.



What we need:
2 chicken breast pieces (Or any chicken part with bone ideally)
2-3 small slices of ginger
1-2 strands of spring onion (preferably one with small onion bulbs)
Salt
sliced medium red onion (optional)
1 tsp Minced ginger-garlic paste (homemade-optional)
Raw Rice of your choice

Well this is 2 step process. In first step we will boil chicken and then in second step cook rice in chicken broth.

Cooking chicken

Prepare chicken:
First of all air dry your chicken or make it dry by using paper towels. Rub salt all over chicken from inside and outside, this will get rid of dead skin or any other gucks etc from chicken.
Rinse out chicken thoroughly and then again let it become dry in open air or use paper towels.
Now again use salt and rub all over chicken for seasoning.
Stuff chicken with slices of ginger and chopped spring onion strands.
Take a heavy bottom pan and put chicken in it. Pour in room temperature water till chicken is completely submerged in water.
Bring water to boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low flame and cook chicken covered for about 20-30 minutes (depending upon size of chicken) on low flame. Here you can remove some leftover impurities from water.
If you are using chicken pieces, just put slices of ginger and spring onion into water and it should work too.
Turn off the heat take chicken out and put chicken in ice water. This shall stop cooking immediately and tightens the skin (most important).
Take it out from ICE water and let it air dry. Our chicken is ready now, keep it aside. Don't throw away that broth as we want it to cook rice in it.
Authentic recipe needs to brush chicken with sesame oil before serving.

Prepare dipping sauce:
Dipping sauce is pretty much simple. I mixed 1 tsp red chilly paste in 2 tbsp chicken broth, along with 1/2 tsp soy sauce and 1 tsp lime juice. You can be creative here to make dipping sauce as per your taste.

Sieved broth 

Prepare rice:
We need to use leftover chicken broth from boiling for cooking rice, so get broth sieved to different pan and let it come to room temperature.
This is optional step but you can have saute onions with minced ginger-garlic paste until they are browned. We shall add this just before rice is almost cooked. This is a real flavor enhancer by the way :)  
Measure desired rice and add appropriate amount of broth. If broth is less then add water, in this case you may also want to drop in 1-2 slice of ginger and stand of spring onion (make sure to remove them at end of cooking procedure).
Our rice is ready to serve, plate it along with chicken and dipping sauce, you may serve salad vegetable along with it as per your choice.

Enjoy your rice.

Beriani dajaj

Beriyani dajaj

                I had tested it in a "Dishdash" (Mediterranean restaurant) at Sunnyvale, California during my US visit. Description reads "Thin chicken strips cooked in Mediterranean spaces, served with saffron rice and aged yoghurt sauce". It was one of the best foods I ever had. Since then I visited same restaurant (Dishdash) almost every week to test their different delicacies and I was never let down by any dish that I tried.

                This is just my attempt and version to reproduce dish that I had. I think I was able to reach pretty close to what I had probably 4 years back :) So here it goes. This dish puts in 4 preparations in one. These 4 preparations are as follows. This dish must be served such that it appears warm. Rice and chicken should bit warm and yoghurt sauce should be at room temperature. Best accompanied with white wine ;) This recipe and quantities are sufficient for 2 servings.

1. Saffron rice

2. Aged yoghurt sauce

3. Thin striped chicken cooked in Mediterranean spices.

4. Fried jacket to hold chicken

1. Saffron rice:

- 1 cup rice.

- 1 and ½ cup water.

- 3-4 saffron strands

- 1/2 inch cinnamon stick

- Rosemary (if available)

 Saffron Rice

                Choose some aromatic long grained rice. We are looking to cook it so that it is cooked through but grains should remain separate. Wash a cup of rice and soak for about 30 minutes in 1 and ½ cup water. Every rice has different cooking time so here you should select quantity of water as per your experience. But generally to make such a rice, a 1 and ½ cup water is enough for 1 cup of rice. Cook rice through and then use back of spoon to carve out rice and spread it on flat surface and keep it uncovered.

2. Aged yoghurt sauce:

- 1 cup of aged yoghurt (it should not be very thick)

- Curry leaves 2-4 numbers.

- 1 tsp. cumin seeds.

- 1 tsp. spoon oil of your choice

- ½ tsp. spoon red chili powder

- ¼ tsp. spoon Asafetida powder (Hing powder)

- salt to taste

Heat oil in a woke. Once oil is hot enough add in cumin seeds, once they start popping quickly add curry leaves, asafetida powder. Then add yoghurt and stir a bit and turn off flame. Add salt to taste and red chili powder and keep aside.

3. Thin striped chicken cooked in Mediterranean spices

- 1 chicken breast piece cut in thin stripes

- 1 tsp. black pepper powder

- 1 tsp. rosemary (powder/dried)

- 1 tsp. basil (powder/dried)

- 1 tsp. thyme (powder/dried)

- 1tsp oregano (powder/dried)

- ¼ cup finely chopped onion

- 10 ml lemon juice

- 1 tbsp. vegetable oil

- 1 tbsp. ginger-garlic paste

- salt to taste.

Prepared chicken

Take glass bowl and put together chicken, spices, salt and lemon juice and marinate for hour or 2 in refrigerator.

Heat oil in a woke and sauté ginger-garlic paste. Later add finely chopped onion and sauté till it turns to pinkish shade.

Now add marinated chicken and sauté for 2-3 minutes on high flame.

Reduce flame to medium and add ¼ cup of water and put lid on. Let it simmer for 5-10 minutes. Once it’s cooked, lift off lid and cook for another 3-4 minutes, till majority of water evaporates.

Turn off heat and keep chicken aside.

4. Fried jacket:

- 1 cup plain floor (you can choose wheat floor as well)

- 1tsp vegetable oil

- ¼ th cup water

- Vegetable oil for shallow fry

Mix oil in floor and start kneading floor till oil is very well incorporated in floor, you should see lumps of floor

Once this step is over start adding little water to floor and keep kneading till a nice dough ball is formed.

Keep dough covered for about 30 minutes.

Make 2 parts of dough, take one part and knead it again. Take a rolling pin and roll out thinly in circle. Carry out same method for 2^nd part of dough as well.

Now put some prepared chicken in middle of dough and make a nice packet of it. Seal off edges with wet fingers.

Prepared packet

Shallow fry both packages till they take nice brown color.

(At end of this process you will have some chicken left, keep it as is, don’t try to over stuff)

Fried packet

Ok we have all of our stuff ready, now it’s time to serve it.

Take a microwave proof shallow dish and arrange half of rice in perfect center of dish. Put a packet of chicken on top of rice. Microwave for about a minute or 2 on high setting. Then pour yoghurt curry around rice. Add some garnishing, you can use left-over chicken and arrange it around yoghurt curry and serve.

 Beriyani Dajaj ready to serve