Harper's Kitchen: Chicken Rice!
Jun. 12th, 2007 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kniteracyMost of you know that my family and I spent several months in Singapore, in 2005. Some of you know that I mostly hated Singapore and that the best part about our time in Singapore was the fantastic last two weeks when we had ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
khaosworks back from the US and hanging out with us for awhile. I'm sure I talked about the terrific food in Singapore, about the prawn mee right across the street from our apartment, about our forays to hawker centres with some friends I knew from a former online hobby, how there is simply no substitute for bak kwa (which I may or may not be spelling right), and how sometimes I think about the things I liked about Singapore in order not to dwell on the things I disliked about it.
Yesterday, I found myself struggling with a serious craving for chicken rice, which became a staple of my diet in Singapore. Now, various quick explanations of chicken rice will tell you that the chicken is either roasted or boiled, but yesterday I went recipe trawling, mostly going through food blogs based in Singapore, and I came across a couple of recipes that explain how the chicken is actually cooked: it's put in a pot of boiling water, and then the heat is turned off. The chicken is steamed, but makes its own broth (which is then used in the preparation of the rice) at the same time! Most peripheral explanations of chicken rice just tell you that the rice is prepared using chicken stock instead of water, and I've done that with good results. What they don't tell you that the recipes I found yesterday do is that, like most dishes that taste amazingly good and are completely addictive, chicken rice has an unhealthy secret. Before boiling, leftover fat from the chicken is rendered in a saucepan, and the rice is actually cooked in the fat first before chicken stock is added. Some cooks add coconut milk to the rice, but I think I'll stick to the basics.
Right: I've got a big stock-pot, a whole chicken, salt, garlic, cilantro, sesame oil, and ginger, plus plenty of chilli, garlic and ginger for sauces. (Alas, it's almost impossible to find proper dark soy sauce in England; you can only find the thin variety.) Chicken rice for dinner at my place!
khaosworks back from the US and hanging out with us for awhile. I'm sure I talked about the terrific food in Singapore, about the prawn mee right across the street from our apartment, about our forays to hawker centres with some friends I knew from a former online hobby, how there is simply no substitute for bak kwa (which I may or may not be spelling right), and how sometimes I think about the things I liked about Singapore in order not to dwell on the things I disliked about it. Yesterday, I found myself struggling with a serious craving for chicken rice, which became a staple of my diet in Singapore. Now, various quick explanations of chicken rice will tell you that the chicken is either roasted or boiled, but yesterday I went recipe trawling, mostly going through food blogs based in Singapore, and I came across a couple of recipes that explain how the chicken is actually cooked: it's put in a pot of boiling water, and then the heat is turned off. The chicken is steamed, but makes its own broth (which is then used in the preparation of the rice) at the same time! Most peripheral explanations of chicken rice just tell you that the rice is prepared using chicken stock instead of water, and I've done that with good results. What they don't tell you that the recipes I found yesterday do is that, like most dishes that taste amazingly good and are completely addictive, chicken rice has an unhealthy secret. Before boiling, leftover fat from the chicken is rendered in a saucepan, and the rice is actually cooked in the fat first before chicken stock is added. Some cooks add coconut milk to the rice, but I think I'll stick to the basics.
Right: I've got a big stock-pot, a whole chicken, salt, garlic, cilantro, sesame oil, and ginger, plus plenty of chilli, garlic and ginger for sauces. (Alas, it's almost impossible to find proper dark soy sauce in England; you can only find the thin variety.) Chicken rice for dinner at my place!
