Recipe: Cheater's Chicken Rice

FOOD FOR FATTIES # 1

I'm a Hainanese. I eat chicken rice and love every bit of it. It's a thing we do. So as you can imagine, being on a diet and all, Hainanese Chicken Rice is definitely a no-no for the next three months. And so, I decided to improvise.

Now Mae and I have made chicken rice on one previous attempt. Since we're pretty lazy people, we cheated a little - hence the name of the recipe. Purists will balk at our chicken rice. Also, I run the risk of being excommunicated from an angry clan of chicken-rice loving Hainanese folk. But what the heck, gluttony is the mother of quick and easy recipes. So here goes:

THE CHICKEN
2 large chicken thigh
1 cucumber, sliced (for garnishing)

THE RICE (Serves 2)
1.5 cup of rice
1.5 big garlic
1 stump of ginger (can I say stump?)
2 pandan leaves (if you have any)
1.5 tbsp Maggi Chicken Stock
1.5 tbsp Butter (x3 if you're not dieting)

THE GRAVY
1 tbsp Maggi Chicken Stock
3 tbsp oyster sauce
0.5 cup water
2 tsp starch flour
2 tsp brown sugar

THE OIL
0.5 cup oil fried with a few cloves of chopped garlic.

THE CHILLI
3 red chillies
4 cloves of garlic
0.25 cups of vinegar
0.25 cups of water

Oil is fattening. There's no doubt about that. But to have steamed chicken rice without any oil is just wrong. Besides, we only live once. So there! :) Okay, on with the show. In 10 easy-peasy steps:

1. Defrost chicken. Put in a deep dish. Steam it. You can use a steamer or just any plain old wok. As you steam your chicken, the fragrant vapour of your chicken will condense into a delicious broth onto your dish. DO NOT DISCARD. This is THE FORCE of your chicken rice!!

2. Wash rice and boil rice. You can use a rice cooker. Mae and I use a microwave rice cooker coz we're lazy people. Do as you normally do, except this time, add a little more water since authentic chicken rice should be slightly damp. Throw in your garlic, ginger, pandan leaves, butter and chicken stock. If you run out of ginger or pandan leaves, don't fret. We didn't have any and it still turned out fine.

3. Mix all gravy ingredients in a bowl. Mix well. Heat it in a saucepan or do like we did. Put in the microwave.

4. Fry your garlic oil.

5. By now, your chicken and your rice should be done. Collect the chicken broth from the steam chicken and pour some of that liquid gold (remember THE FORCE?) into your rice. Mix well. Resume warming rice.

6. Still got broth? Mix the rest into your gravy.

7. Put chilli, garlic, water and vinegar into blender. You can throw in a piece of ginger if you like. Add in broth. (Yes, it's everywhere!) Blend the stuff. Then put the chilli mixture in a saucepan and cook it until the "green" taste of raw chilli is gone.

8. Lay your cucumber slices on a plate. Mae and I bought a Japanese Kyuri instead. Same thing. Taste better.

9. Chop up chicken into reasonable-sized chunks. Lay onto cucumber. Pour gravy mix liberally over the chicken. Drizzle garlic oil over this plate.

10. Serve while hot and bask in the genius of your cooking skills.

Here's a little disclaimer for you. In case you think that Cheater's Chicken Rice will taste like the definitive Hainanese Chicken Rice, don't hold your breath. While it isn't half bad, it will never be as good as the real thing. But when you take into consideration that you made it all by yourself and it seems to be a fairly healthy dish, you'll forgive me. I promise. :)

If you're doing this, pls tell me the results. Also, if you think you have anything that enhances this recipe, do share. May THE FORCE be with you.


the force is strong in this one