Hainanese Chicken Rice

Chicken Rice is one of the wellknown dish in Singapore. It is sold in almost all of the food courts in Singapore. I remember, with only S$ 2.50 I can buy a plate of chicken rice set in my school canteen. But this dish may cost more in other proper chicken rice Restaurant.

I admit that I didn't eat chicken rice often in Singapore. This is not my favourite dish, mostly because it can be found everywhere. But few days ago, I saw a blog of a friend posting about chicken rice and since then I am challenged to make one here.

This is not a authentic way to make a real chicken rice, but at least this can remind of my time in Singapore. I try to combine recipes from internet with the limited ingredients and tools in my kitchen. Dedicated for friends who have leave Singapore for a some time or for good and want to make their own home made chicken rice.

I don't know how the best chicken rice supposed to taste, but here I present you my first ever try of making chicken rice (white) complete with its garlic sauce, soup and eggs.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Chicken :
4 pcs chicken legs
2 stalks spring onion
6 slices ginger
4 bulbs garlic lightly cracked
2 bulbs onion diced
1 tbsp coriander powder
1000 ml water
2 tbsp salt

Rice:
2 tbsp vegetable oil
500 grams rice
1 big shallot / 3 small size shallots thinly sliced
2 tbsp grated ginger
4 bulbs grated garlic
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp salt

Garlic Sauce:
1 tbsp grated ginger
3 bulbs garlic
2 padi chili (optional)
1 big red long paprika / 4 red chili
2 tbsp lime / lemon juice
salt to taste
sugar to taste
3 tbsp chicken stock

Eggs:
100 ml Water
6 hard boiled eggs
4 tbsp dark soy sauce
small container

Additional:
2 tbsp sesame oil
cucumber

Step 1 (Chicken):

1. Put spring onion, ginger, garlic, onion, coriander powder, and water in a big pot and brig to rolling boil.
2. Put chicken legs in the boiling water. Make sure the water is enough to cover all of the chicken parts. Cover the pot and boil for 5 minutes.
3. Turn off the heat, and do not lift the cover. Let the chicken to be cooked for 30 minutes with the remaining heat and steam. (In my case I'm using pressure cooker because it has a tight lid. Rice cooker pot might be used in this process)
4. Once the chicken throughly cooked, take out all of the chicken legs from the pot and rinse them with running water or iced water bath.
5. Deboned the chicken legs and set the meat aside. Brush the sesame oil on the chicken and set the meat aside.
6. Keep the remaining chicken bones for making chicken stock.

Step 2 (Chicken Stock):

1. Add chicken bones to the earlier pot and boil it for around 20 minutes.
2. Drain off the stock and set aside.

Step 3 (rice):

1. Wash rice, and strain it. Set aside.
2. Add vegetable oil on the heated pan.
3. Add shallot, garlic, and ginger. Saute until fragrant.
4. Add the earlier strained rice and salt, and stir until fragrant.
5. Move all the rice mixtures into rice cooker. Add half of the chicken stock to it and adjust the liquid volume with water if the water level is not enough. (Follow a normal rice cooking water level)
6. Cook it until the fragrance of the rice fill your room/house. I love this part.. hehe

Step 4 (sauce);

1. Mashed chili, garlic, and ginger with mortar and pestle, or simply blend it with food processor until they reach a paste consistency.
2. Add in chicken stock, lime juice, sugar, and salt.

Step 5 (eggs):

1. Peeled hard boiled eggs and dip it in a mixture of water and soya souce.
2. Put in a small water tight container. Leave them for a while. Turn the container upside down each 5 minutes just to get the color of egg evenly brown.

Step 6 (soup):

1. Reheat the left stock
2. Add salt, white pepper and sliced spring onion.

Combine every element except soup in one plate and add sliced cucumber as garnish. Serve it with hot chicken stock soup.

Portion: 6 person

Self note:

1. My first rice need more salt
2. The amount of garlic chili sauce is too much for 6 person portion. It is still not perfect for me, but I'm not sure how to improve it. Maybe the garlic or ginger was too strong, or I just need to try another recipe for garlich chili sauce.
3. Next try: etter chicken deboning skill for better presentation.
4. More improvements needed for the eggs. Maybe new recipe. This time I just use the easiest one.

Simple baked rice

Whoever loves cheesy and creamy food will love this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1/2 bulb onion sliced

3 clove garlic

200 ml heavy cream

250 gr Brocolli (boiled)

1 cup Mushroom 

Sousages/meat

Salt and pepper

Cheese

4 portion of cooked rice

You'll need:

Oven

Baking Tray/any ovenproof bowl

Pan

Baked Rice

Steps:

1. Preheat Oven 200 deg Celcius
2. Heat butter in pan, sautee sliced onion and garlic.
3. Stir sousages or other type of meat. Stir until the meat cooked.
4. Add mushrooms and stir for a few seconds.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make sure it is slightly over salty. Remember that we need to combine it with some rice later.
6. Add cliced boiled brocolli, turn of the heat.
7. Prepare cooked rice in a baking tray.
8. Strain meat, mushrooms and vegetables and arrange them on top of rice. 
9. Reheat the cream and melt some part of cheese to the cream mixture.
10. Pour the mixture in the topped rice pan and finish it with cheese on top.
11. Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes until the cheese melt and turn into golden color.
12. Serve with tomato ketchup.

I love this dish because it's easy to prepare and basically can clear my leftover ingredients in fridge.

Share with me your idea to improve this dish or your favourite topping for this type of baked rice.

Enjoy! ^_^

Fried rice without wok ? (Tuna and Sausage Fried Rice)

We just move to a new place. This mini appartment is a all in one type, and everything we need in a house is available there. Name it! Bed, book shelves, wardrobe, mini fridge, bathroom, cooktop, washing basin. 

The problem is its mini size cooking space. A full size wok cannot fit in it. Flat pan is not suitable for cooking fried rice due to it'd low side. So, should I give up cooking fried rice (read: My husband's favourite menu)? No. We still can cook fried rice perfectly with Rice cooker bowl, with the same procedure as my previous fried rice recipe, I managed to cook a decious fried rice. 

Fried Rice in Rice cooker

Ingredients:

500 grams cooked rice

1.5 Beef Sousage

2 small can Tuna in oil

1 big red bell pepper

3 stems scallion

4 eggs

2 red onions

5 garlic

Salt

Sugar

Black pepper

Dried chili powder

Tomato ketchup

Serving: 6 portions

Since it tastes too good, we'll suspectedly finish it in 2 meal.

By the way, this is the first time for me, cooking fried rice with tuna and without sweet soy sauce. It tastes unexspectedly nice. I love the taste of fish in my rice :)

Enjoy!

Cooking Nasi Goreng : Basic

A simple menu that I'll miss when away from home and away from Indonesia is Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice). Some chinese or malay or even indian food stall in Singapore may serve fried rice as well, but It's just different from what I normally have at home.

Cooking Fried Rice is a tricky yet fun for me. I can cook with 101 possibilities, mix and match the ingredients we have in fridge, I can cook left over rice, and it's a meal that you can eat without any additional dish.

You may find the ingredients are too many or maybe you don't have all in your fridge. Dont worry, it's just a basic recipe and you may modify it. However, some ingredients may be significant in creating a homy taste Nasi Goreng.

Here we go!

Tools:

1. Wok or non-sticky pan
2. Cooking Spatula
3. Knife
4. Chopping Board

Ingredients:

1. Cooking oil -- 7 tbsp
2. Chopped Garlic -- 2 tbsp or more
3. Chopped Shallot -- 2 tbsp or more
4. Meat: Frozen chicken sausage -- 4 pcs
5. Vege.: Carrot -- a half carrot
6. Light soy sauce -- 3 tbsp
7. Sweet soy sauce -- 2 tbsp
8. Tomato sauce -- 2 tbsp
9. Salt -- 2 pinch
10. Left over rice -- 1 full plate
11. Egg beaten-- 2 pcs
12. Chopped spring onion -- 2 stalk

Steps:

1. Prepare pan/wok on stove and turn on fire. Make sure there is no water drop on pan before pour the cooking oil. Water an oil only in a hot pan is not a good combination for cooking.
2. Heat oil, then put shallot and garlic as soon as you think that the oil is hot. Do not let the oil produce smoke, it means you will burn the shallot and garlic immediately.
3. Put chopped carrot and sausage. If you prepare raw meat, cook it first before combine them with carrot.
4. Stir until carrot change color into slightly lighter color. Put light soya sauce, rice, sweet soy sauce and tomato sauce. Stirr well until the rice mix evenly with all souce.
5. In this stage try to put a small fire, since rice will get burnt easily. Do not tempted to add any water if they do not blend easily. Keep stirring, take your time. Turn off the fire if needed.
6. Put salt and pepper. Stir again for a while.
7. Pour beaten eggs on the outer line of fried rice (as shown in picture). In this moment, stop stirring the rice, an observe until the eggs slightly cooked and solid, then start to mix again.
8. Taste your fried rice, if it's not salty, you may add salt or light soy sauce accordingly.
9. After everything is done, put spring onion on last step. Some of you may hate spring onion and think that it's not significant. But believe me it does contribute to the fried rice perfection. Stir again until the spring onion mix well in the rice.

Tips:

1. Try you best to use left over rice. If you only have just cooked rice, cool it first before using. Do you know what is the effect? :)
2. Do not use too little oil, it will give you problem in mixing all the ingredients. If you're a health conscious people and want to avoid oil, do not eat fried rice. Btw oil is good to dilute vitamin A in carrot :)
3. I think the main difference between indonesian style fried rice and others are the amount of shallot, garlic and the sweet soy sauce. Please have these ingredients to make a nice nasi goreng.
4. Amount of ingredient is important for balance of fried rice, but the most important thing in cooking fried rice is the sequence. The best sequence that i know in cooking fried rice so far is this one. Some prefer to put eggs in earlier stage, but i prefer to put later.
5. Keep cooking and you'll know which sequence or amount of ingredient is suitable or which ingredient you may omit.
6. Mixing rice and those ingredients are sometimes frustrating for beginners. So I suggest to start with 1-2 portion only. Btw my recipe is enough for 2 persons or 3/4 small portions. Use loose rice and put wok in low heat to make stirring easier.

The Fried Rice fail? Dont worry, I was there before.. :)
It wont taste that bad because self cooked food will taste better ^^

Please share to me you experience or experiment in cooking fried rice. I'll be happy to hear from you.

First timer and have any problem? Please share, me or any of reader may help you to solve the problem.

Happy Cooking..!

Cooking Steam Rice : Basic

As an Indonesian, steam rice is a compulsory  item in my meal. Some of you maybe cannot imagine how come rice is a must in a meal. Noodle might be treated as dish, and burger set only a brunch or tea time portion. I also cannot explain why. But most of Indonesian, or some Asians will feel that they never took any meal if they don't have rice. Therefore, in my first post I'll briefly write a post how to cook that simple steam rice.

I'm sure if you are sticking to read my post, you are either never steam rice before - this is your first time cooking steam rice or just curious about my writing in this blog *grin*

Tools:

1. Rice cooker

Ingredients:

1. Normal Plain Rice   -- 2 cups
2. Water  -- adjust

Steps:

1. Measure 2 cups of rice and pour into rice cooker pot.
2. Clean the rice grain from unwanted materials, like tiny stones, rice skin, etc.
3. Rinse rice grains with water twice.
4. Add clean water to the pot up to the 2 cups marking.
5. Cook rice until the rice cooker lever move to 'reheat'.
6. Steam rice is ready for 3 portion.

Notes:

1. If you do not have any measuring cup, just use any amount of rice that you need, and pour water in the last step until reach about 2 cm from the rice surface.
2. Result may be vary due to amount of water and type of rice. You may adjust the soft-hard level of cooked rice according to your preference. Less water for harder texture, and more for softer/more moisture.
3. If you want to cook brown rice or non-polished rice, please soak the rice grain at least 1 hour before cooking. Left rice to soak overnight will also work. Put more water since these type of rice will absorb more water. Otherwise, using this recipe will result into hard texture of rice.
4. Do not use glutinous rice (beras ketan in Bahasa Indonesia) , it will end with different result (sticky). In case you are not familiar with how sticky rice looks like, it is whiter than other rice. Normal rice looks a bit translucent compared to glutinous rice.

(feel free to ask if you have any question and I will try to respond as soon as i can)