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What's For Dinner? v.19.43: Hainanese Chicken Rice [1]

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Date: 2025-04-26

Few dishes are as universal as chicken and rice. Since they were first domesticated in China, chickens and rice have spread all over the globe and in every nation you will find some sort of chicken with rice dish.

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I originally had a LONG bit about the cultivation history of rice, why African rice is slowly fading away, why wild rice isn’t even rice at all, and then a list of a bunch of chicken rice dishes from all over. But I’ll just say that I made what is arguably the most popular chicken and rice dish in the world: Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Hainanese chicken rice comes from obviously the Hainan Province in China, where the dish was first developed during the Qing Dynasty. One of the reasons it was developed was to take advantage of the characteristics of the Wenchang chicken—its tender meat and the texture of the skin. Immigrants leaving the island beginning in the 19th Century settled in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other places in the area and brought the dish with them. During World War II, much of Southeast Asia was still under control of the British. As the British left during and after the War, their Hainanese servants lost their source of income, so they opened chicken and rice stalls. They were inexpensive, so most could afford it, and the ingredients were ready at hand. As the area has grown and developed, this Singaporean favorite became one of the country’s National Dishes. There are several hawker stalls and restaurants that have ben open for generations and are foodie destinations.

Making the dish is deceptively simple. Because this dish is all about the RICE, not the chicken. So to begin. I added smashed garlic and ginger which I smashed by putting them into a zip top bag and then going to town with my meat pounder into the slow cooker:

Then I added scallions, and smashed shallots and lemongrass

I added bone in skin on chicken thighs and seasoned with white pepper and some MSG

I added like three cups of water and set it on low. Meanwhile, I went to get my chores done—an echocardiogram and my laundry. When I got home like six hours later, the broth looked like this:

And let me tell you, guys, the AROMA. Especially when you tasted the broth. This broth is supposed to be hugely aromatic, based on the ginger and scallions, and oh my sweet lord it was.

Anyway, at this point, if you are doing the recipe traditionally, you would heat up the water and aromatics to a good simmer then dip a whole chicken in, and then turn the heat off and poach for about 45 minutes which should cook the chicken. Then you would remove it from the broth and then hang the bird to dry. This helps give the chicken skin its particular texture for the dish. because it’s poached at a low temperature and plunged into ice right after, this tightens the skin, and drying gives it the gelatinous texture it’s famous for. It gets its silky texture from the sesame oil that’s rubbed into the chicken before serving.

Anyway, with my chicken not in an ice bath but air drying, it’s time to strain the broth.

And I’ve had this capital letter pyrex for DECADES.

Three cups of water yielded about six cups of broth. And now to begin the rice process.

The rice in this dish is considered the most important part because of its flavor and texture. It’s often named “oily rice”. because not only is it cooked in that unctuous broth we just made, but the rice is toasted lightly in fat before the broth is added.

A digression on fat: If a whole bird is being used, it is customary to remove the “Pope’s Nose” or tail, and any extra big hunks of fat on the chicken and render those for their fat and toast the rice and aromatics in that. I did not have that, being as I used thighs. What I did have was a jar of duck fat that, while unopened, was still a good ways past the “best by” date on the jar. I opened the jar, sniffed and took a little taste. I thought it tasted ok, but to be sure I made myself a grilled cheese using the duck fat to fry the sammich. It tasted OK. On to the next step.

So I used some of that duck fat along with some butter and sweated a brunoise of shallot and some garlic paste and ginger paste and a big pinch of salt, seeing as the broth was unseasoned.

Once the rice was toasted, I added the broth, brought it to a boil, and lowered to a simmer

Just lookit what the rice is cooking in. Yums.

As the rice was cooking, I took apart the chicken, and then added a tablespoon or so of sesame oil and rubbed it in the chicken as I mixed it up

Yes, there’s sesame oil on the chicken.

And by this time the rice was done. Now—because I am making these into meals for the week, I basically mix the rice and chicken together and disburse it into my meal containers.

In a stall or restaurant, however, it’s done quite differently. Naturally everything is served separate, and the chicken is properly sliced and not pulled. You would get on the plate chicken, broth, rice, and a garnish of cucumber. You will also have at least two sauces on the side for dipping—a chili sauce and a ginger garlic sauce. You may often also have some dark soy sauce as well. The star of the sauces is the ginger garlic sauce, because it enhances and emboldens the aromas of the chicken and the rice. Here is what a proper Hainanese chicken set looks like. From a hawker place in the Philippines. Notice the paper plate.

It really does live up to all the hype, and this is an amateur cooking it for the first time and not even doing it fully properly. And I’m lucky that living near Chicago, I can go to a place dedicated to the chicken rice and taste how it’s made by natives. I’m betting that a lot of the aromas and textures will be similar. And if you have Chinese or Thai restaurants in your town, you can check the menus to see if they have it.

Anyway, no real WFD tonight for me. Tonight, I’m having hors d’oeuvres at my choir’s fundraising cabaret. There will be gin, nice things to nosh, and lots of singing. So I’ll comment and rec when I get home or do it tomorrow. I will do my big meal prep tomorrow—I’m going to have some sausage with noodles and sauerkraut.

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