Hainanese-Style

ChickenChris Girvan-Brown

We do this dish in BBQ School, and while it technically isn’t barbecue or grilling, it is outdoor cooking. Whenever I do it, people are amazed that such a simple technique works so well. It’s a bastardization of Haina-nese Chicken Rice, but without the rice this time, as rice is an illegal carbohydrate in my diet. Feel free to steam some rice to go with it if you wish.

When the Hainanese migrated to Singa-pore around the 1840s, they brought with them a staple and comfort food known as Wenchang chicken rice. One hundred years later, the first street vendor started serving Wenchang chicken rice. Since then the dish has gradually evolved as Cantonese tech-niques influenced the way it was made, and Hainanese Chicken Rice, as it is now called, became a uniquely Singaporean dish.

This is my adaptation (read simplifi-cation) of that dish. This is a lovely, nutritious, clean-tasting dish with all the warm soul of chicken noodle soup; you can just feel it doing you good. No wonder the Hainanese consider it com-fort food; I would cook this at home at least once a month!

The dish relies on the natural flavor of the chicken, producing meat that is tender and silky in the mouth, through the use of a trick that feels like a leap of faith at first. The chicken is poached in boiled stock, then the heat is turned off, and the chick-en heats up as the stock cools, until they equalize at around 80 degrees C (175 de-grees F). The chicken should be cooked by this point. The chicken and stock are left

to slowly cool, and when the temperature of the chicken and stock drops to 70 de-grees C (160 degrees F), the dish is ready to serve.

One of the real joys of this meal is how ef-fortless it is to cook; you just set it up and walk away! It’s perfect for camping. You can boil the stock, pop your chicken in, and go fishing, and lunch is ready when you get back! Any leftover chicken makes a great sandwich or salad, too.

Hainanese-Style Chicken

• Chicken• Chopped chili• Chopped cilantro• Soy sauce• Kecup manis• Onion• Capsicum (Bell Pepper)• Green onion• Bok Choy (Chinese Cabbage) or other

Asian leafy vegetable.

This is more of a technique than a recipe.

Get your largest stock pot and make a prim-itive stock. I’m using some onion, capsicum (bell pepper) and chili, with a good dollop of Kecap Manis (Indonesian sweetened car-amel soy sauce). Look through the drawer at the bottom of your fridge and throw in any vegetables that are not slimy; you are just trying to create a flavorful stock. Fill the stockpot 3/4 with water and throw in all the ingredients you think would make a tasty stock.

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Boil the stock and leave it simmer for a half an hour so all the flavors get released.

Make a handle for the chicken so you can get it in and out of the hot liquid easily. I just run some butcher’s twine through the bird lengthwise and knot it together. Be sure to lift the bird by the spine if you use this method, as the twine may cut through the chicken between the leg and breast if the bird is the other way up.

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Carefully lower the chicken into the boiling liquid and turn the heat off.

Note: if there is a cold breeze or if your pot is small, leave the heat on for two to five minutes to keep the liquid from cooling too quickly.

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Leave the chicken in the liquid for at least an hour; I leave it an hour and a half.

While you are waiting, prepare a bowl with some sliced chili, green onion, and cilantro, and maybe ginger if you have some.

Wash and prepare some Bok Choy by breaking the leaves off.

Remove the chicken from the stock, turn the heat back on, and drop in the Bok Choy. Leave it in just long enough to wilt.

Take a couple of ladles of the stock and pour it over the prepared bowl of chili, green onion, and cilantro.

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Slice the chicken. Look at how beautiful and moist it is, just perfectly cooked!

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Chris Girvan-Brown (aka Urban Griller) is Australia’s BBQ Guru. He has written numerous BBQ articles for food magazines, instruction manuals, and cookbooks. He also does BBQ cooking segments for local radio and has been running BBQ cooking schools for 14 years.

UrbanGriller.com Barbecue Forum

Pour the stock and aromatics from the prepared bowl over the chicken, and serve with extra chopped chilli and some soy sauce.

Once you try this, you’ll be doing it regularly; it’s an easy and refreshing Asian dish everyone will love!

Try experimenting with different stock mixes: I like to add heaps of garlic with a couple of heaped teaspoons of good curry paste.

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