members recipes

An interpretation of Hainanese Chicken Rice - serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
1 whole free range chicken (contents of the cavity removed)
Cold water
4 organic chicken stock cubes
12 black peppercorns
4 fresh tomatoes, quartered
3 sprigs of fresh parsley
3 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed
Anything else you like, e.g• sliced fresh red chillies, sprigs of fresh coriander
Basmati rice – enough for 4 to 6 people

Method
Place the chicken, stock cubes, peppercorns, tomatoes, parsley, garlic and any optional ingredients into a large pot. Add sufficient cold water to cover the chicken.

Cover the pot, bring to the boil gradually and then turn the heat right down to a gentle simmer. Keep the pot covered. Simmer gently for 1 hour then turn the heat off and set aside for at least 1 hour, the longer the better.

When you\'re ready to complete and serve the dish, remove the chicken from the pot and strain the stock into a saucepan and set aside. Discard the contents of the strainer.

Remove all the flesh from the chicken, break up the pieces of chicken meat into chunks or slices, place in a bowl and set aside. Discard the skin, bones and any other unwanted parts.

Pour the rice into a saucepan, cover with some of the chicken stock, stir once and bring to the boil. Add additional stock from time-to-time, as the stock is absorbed, until the rice is cooked. Meanwhile, reduce the remaining stock by about 20%, by boiling uncovered.

With this dish, everyone serves themselves at the table in large individual bowls - proceed as follows:

- Spoon a generous portion of rice into your bowl
- Add a generous portion of chicken
- Add two or three generous ladels of chicken stock, sufficient to fill the bowl, and stir with a spoon

Accompany each bowl with individual dipping dishes of light soy sauce and sweet chilli sauce (dip the chicken pieces into the sauces). Come back for more when your bowl is empty!!

I like to stir my soy sauce and chilli sauce into my bowl after adding the stock, rather than use the sauces as dips – the result is a fabulous oriental style chicken and rice soup. It’s great comfort food on a cold night.

A side dish of stir fried fresh broccoli (using some chicken stock), chopped fresh red chillies, fresh crushed garlic and soy sauce works really with this recipe. Stir fried Choy Sum or Bok Choy works just as well if you don’t like broccoli.

Any leftover chicken stock can be frozen and makes a brilliant base for my Mulligatawny Soup (see separate recipe).