Hainanese Roasted Chicken Rice

Hello everybody! How has your week been?

Mine's been pretty hectic and stressful, but I still make an effort to come home and cook dinner because nothing beats a tasty, home cooked meal to make up your day. :)

And even better when I get to eat my ultimate favourite chicken rice!

To say that I loveeeeeeee chicken rice is an understatement. But I can't choose between the poached or the roasted as I love them both equally much!

My attempts at the poached version has been pretty successful. I would cook it every time I  had a craving - although it doesn't meet the standard of that of my favourite hawker stall in Malaysia, it would be satisfactory enough.

As for the roasted version, I used to really enjoy Coconut House's BBQ Chicken but the standard has dropped tremendously over the years which makes me unwilling to go back. I haven't had the luck with looking for other alternatives so I thought I'd give it a go myself!

Thank goodness for Google and blogs. I found a great recipe from one of my favourite food blogs - 3 Hungry Tummies! :)

Hainanese Roasted Chicken Rice (serves 4)
Recipe adapted from 3 Hungry Tummies & modified by The Bakeanista

Yummy Chicken;

• 4 chicken Maryland, excess skin & fat trimmed and reserved
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• I tbsp rice wine
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp grated garlic (2-3 garlic cloves)
• 2 tsp five spice powder
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• I tbsp maltose

Method

1. Marinate the chicken Maryland with all seasonings (except maltose) for 3-4 hours, or overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 220 deg C and remove chicken from refrigerator to bring to room temperature.
3. Brush a layer of maltose over chicken. I combined the maltose with a drizzle of water to obtain consistency similar to that of honey.
4. Roast chicken for 20 minutes at 200°C.
5. Bring temperature down to 180°C and roasted for another 10-15 minutes until skin is crisp and dark brown in colour.
6. Let chicken rest for 10 minutes before chopping or if you like, you may serve the entire piece of chicken Maryland as it is.
7. Garnish rice with fried shallot, accompanied by cucumber and tomato. Serve with chilli sauce and ginger sauce.

Fragrant rice;

• Reserved chicken skin & fat
• 1 tbsp of ginger, finely diced
• 1 tbsp of garlic, finely diced
• 3 cups of jasmine rice (washed, rinsed, drained well)
• 2 pandan leaves, tied in knot
• 4 cups of chicken stock
• Pinch of salt

Method 

1. Heat wok and render chicken fat by frying chicken skin and fat with 1 tbsp of water with medium heat until you obtain approximately 2 tbsp of fats.
2. Remove all solids (crackling browned chicken fat and skin) and add both ginger and garlic. Fry until brown and fragrant.
3. Add drained rice to wok and continue to fry the rice for 1-2 minutes.
4. Transfer rice to rice cooker pot then add stock, salt and pandan leaves. Cook.

This is one of my staple recipes for a lazy night! What I do is I marinade the chicken maybe over the weekend, then on a week night, all I have to do is to defrost the chicken a night before and roast it. Cook the rice and tadahhhh, dinner's served! ;)

Gotta love easy preparation, hey? J So, tell me, what is your favourite home cooked meal? Do you have any good recipes to share?