Name: Hainan Chicken Rice
Yield: Serves 4 with 1 Vegetable Dish
Cuisine: China
Ingredients: 15 ml (1 tbsp) peanut or vegetable oil; 375 g (13 oz/2 cups) long-grain white rice, rinsed and drained; 10–15 ml (2–3 tsp) grated ginger; chicken stock (or water with 2 chicken stock cubes dissolved in it); 4 long fresh red chillies, deseeded then pulverised; 10 ml (2 tsp) very finely chopped or puréed garlic; 45 ml (3 tbsp) peanut or vegetable oil (or rendered chicken fat); salt; 5 ml (1 tsp) salt; 30 ml (2 tbsp) Chinese rice vinegar; 5 ml (1 tsp) puréed garlic; 5–10 ml (1–2 tsp) sugar; 2.5 ml (½ tsp) salt; 1 cleaned chicken, about 1.5 kilos (3½ lb); 45 ml (3 tbsp) thick or dark soy sauce

Preparation info

Serves
4
with 1 Vegetable Dish

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Classic Food of China

By Yan-Kit So

Published 1992

About

This dish may have originated from Hainan, the offshore island in the south of Guangdong province, but in recent decades it has become the trademark of Singapore cuisine, and is extremely popular among the Chinese there as well as in Hong Kong. When a dish travels from one country to another, where it takes root, it is inevitably adapted to reflect local tastes and this is what has happened here. To poach a chicken then use a salt and grated ginger dipping sauce is basically Cantonese, but