This Hainanese Chicken Rice recipe 海南鸡饭 was listed as one of the “world’s 50 best foods” by CNN.

SAVEUR, the global guide to cooking, entertaining, and food travel, described it as one of Southeast Asia’s most beloved culinary exports.”

Besides all the global recognition, serving Hainanese chicken rice is deceptively simple. The chicken is poached at sub-boiling temperature and served with chili sauce, ginger-garlic sauce, and flavored rice.

In this article, I will show you step-by-step instructions on how to prepare Hainanese chicken rice. Let’s get started!

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The Hainanese chicken rice recipe, a step-by-step guide 

1. Poach the chicken 

a. Prepare the chicken before poaching

• Boil a pot of water. You must get a large stock pot to put a whole chicken in. Fill up the pot with enough water to submerge the entire chicken. Bring the water to a boil. 
• Prepare the aromatics. Meanwhile, cut some ginger into slices, mash a few cloves of garlic, and chop a large stalk of scallion (spring onion or green onion) into 5cm sections. Add these aromatic ingredients to the pot to flavor the water, or insert it into the chicken cavity and secure it with toothpicks. Ginger, garlic, and scallion are three ingredients frequently used in Chinese cooking as their flavors complement each other.
• Exfoliate the chicken with salt. Next, clean the whole chicken with running water. Remove the innards (my chicken vendor always does it for me). Then, use some coarse salt to rub the skin of the chicken. This step will remove any remaining hair from the skin, and the chicken will have a clean and smooth presentation after poaching. 

b. Poach the chicken

• Shower the chicken with boiling water. After cleaning the chicken, hook it up or use tongs to hold it above the boiling water. Ladle the boiling water over the chicken for one to two minutes. The heat from the boiling water will contract the skin and adhere tightly to the meat so that it will not detach from the chicken during poaching. 
• Simmer for twenty minutes. Now lower the chicken into the water. Increase to medium heat to bring the water to a boil quickly. The chicken must be submerged fully in the water to poach evenly. Add more water if necessary. Also, use a large pot so that the chicken will not touch the bottom of the pot,
• Once the water is boiling again, adjust to low heat until it is barely simmering at sub-boiling temperature, only with a few bubbles ascending to the surface. Poach the chicken for twenty minutes. 
• If you have stainless steel poultry hooks, hang the chicken to the pot’s side. Chicken that stands vertically cooks more evenly. Put the chicken inside a large stockpot if you do not have the hook. However, the area touching the bottom may be overcooked due to the heat from the stove. 
• After twenty minutes, switch off the stove and let the chicken continue cooking in the water for another twenty minutes (the exact cooking time depends on the size of the chickens and the amount of water.) Since there is plenty of chicken broth, it will cool down slowly, and the heat will continue penetrating deep down the skin. By the end of the second twenty minutes, every part of the chicken should have been thoroughly cooked. Since there is no high heat involved in the process, the meat is very tender and soft. 

You can insert a kitchen thermometer into the thickest part of the meat to check the doneness. It should be at least 70°C/160°F, and no blood oozing when you remove the thermometer.

The water after poaching the chicken will be used to cook the rice. The leftover broth can be used to cook other dishes.

c. Soak the chicken in cold water after poaching

• Plunge the chicken into ice water to stop cooking instantly. Otherwise, the latent heat will keep cooking and toughen the chicken meat. 
• Keep the chicken in the ice bath for twenty minutes or until completely cold.
• Remove the chicken from the ice bath and hang it to dry. The chicken is now ready. 
• Cut the chicken into thick slices when the chicken returns to room temperature.
• Garnish with scallion and coriander leaves. Cut some fresh cucumber slices to serve together. 

Note: Using chicken parts, such as chicken thighs or chicken breast, will not work properly to produce the best Hainanese chicken.

Important. The tender chicken skin can easily break and detach from the meat. Do not handle the chicken unnecessarily, and be gentle. Use a sharp knife to slice through the skin.

2. Cook the chicken rice 

Rinse and drain the Jasmine rice, just like preparing the regular steamed rice. 

There are two ways to proceed from here.

a. Method 1

Bashed a few cloves of garlic and an inch of ginger. Sauté them with chicken fat or cooking oil. Add the drained rice and stir-fry for a minute or until aromatic. The proponents of this method believe that rice is more fragrant after frying. The oil also lubricates every grain and makes it less sticky, preventing the rice from sticking together. Stir-frying rice is also the first step in making Zongzi.

b. Method 2

Sauté the garlic and ginger with the chicken fat or some vegetable oil until slightly brown. The excess fat is used for cooking the rice, giving it an aromatic flavor. Those who advocate this method think it is aromatic enough, and there is no need to fry the rice. 

The subsequent steps are identical, regardless of which method you follow:

• Pour the rice, garlic, and ginger into the rice cooker.
• Add the salt, the chicken broth, and two to three pandan leaves.
• The chicken broth is about 1.5 the dry weight of the rice. 

Most restaurants will add chicken bouillon to the rice to intensify the flavor. I will leave it to you whether you want to use chicken bouillon or you can purchase those with no MSG added.

Let the rice cooker do its work. Fluff the rice with a spatula once the rice is cooked. The rice will cake together if you leave it unattended. 

3. Make the Hainanese chicken dipping sauce 

The Hainanese chicken rice has three dipping sauces, which are all straightforward. 

a. Ginger garlic sauce

The preparation of ginger sauce is simple. Blend the ginger, garlic, oil, salt, and chicken stock until homogenous. Use the mortar and pestle for a small amount. 

b. Hainanese chicken rice chili sauce 

• Blend the red chili, bird’s-eye chili (optional), garlic, ginger, salt, and sugar.
• Add a few drops of lime juice and dilute the sauce with chicken broth.

c. Soy sauce 

• Mix all the ingredients: light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and chicken broth in a small bowl. Some Malay stores use sweet soy sauce instead of light soy sauce.
• Drizzle on the Hainanese chicken with soy sauce before serving. 

4. Prepare the Hainanese chicken soup

Hainanese chicken rice is not perfect if there isn’t a soup to serve with the chicken. 

There is no standard soup, but most are simple soups that add vegetables to the broth after pitching the chicken.

One simple recipe is to make old cucumber and chicken soup. 

• Boil the chicken feet we reserve earlier with the poaching liquid for twenty minutes. Remove the chicken feet.
• Cut an old cucumber into pieces and boil it with the broth until it becomes soft.
• Season with salt and pepper and serve. 

Place the chicken on top of the bed of rice and serve it with chicken soup, ginger garlic, and chili sauce.

Origin controversy 

Hainanese chicken rice is the Malaysian/Singapore adaptation of the Wenchang chicken from the Hainan province of China. There are a few stories about the origin of this rice.

One legend says that a Chinese called Wong Yi Guan came to Singapore in 1936. He started his chicken rice business by carrying the chicken rice in a bamboo basket with a pole hanging on his shoulder. After accumulating enough capital, he started Singapore’s first chicken rice restaurant. Since then, many restaurants have followed his successful Singapore Hainanese chicken rice recipe with their respective interpretations.

However, according to the Malaysian, the earliest Hainanese chicken rice was created by a migrant from the Hainan province called 梁居清. He set up the chicken rice store in Malacca in the ’20s and eventually moved to Klang in the ’30s.

Regardless of the controversy over who invented the authentic Hainanese chicken rice, it is the undisputed best-selling rice dish in Singapore and Malaysia. There are already three stores serving it within a five-minute walk from where I live. This Hainanese chicken rice recipe will closely follow the style of those famous chicken rice stores near me.