Chicken rice

One of the things I miss most living away from Singapore is the food. You can take the girl out of Singapore but you can't take the longing for chicken rice away from her.

There is chicken rice here in Bangkok. They call it 'kao man gai' and they have the steamed or fried version. I have not found the roast version here yet. There is a chain of Singapore chicken rice stalls called Boon Tong Kiat but I found the rice bland and the they only sell steamed chicken.

I have had no choice but to cook my own roast chicken rice. The recipe is adapted from Periplus Malaysian favourites cooking book. Why adapted? I used the ingredients listed but tweaked it to suit my taste.

To me, the key ingredient is the chicken stock. What I normally do is boil a big batch of stock and freeze it for soups, porridge etc. The meat and vegetables from the stock I dice it up to make porridge for us or as feed it to my dogs as a treat. They love it!

Stock

Ingredients:

2 chicken carcasses
6 pork bones (optional)
2 carrots
2 big onion
2 corn
1 leek (optional)
2 stalks shallots
2 coriander roots

3 liter water

Method:

Wash chicken and pork bones.

Place all ingredients into big stock pot and boil, then simmer for 2-3 hours.

Strain the stock before packing and freezing it.

Chicken Rice

Ingredients for rice:

4 - 5 handfuls of rice. Rinsed.
8 -10 cloves garlic finely chopped
6 slices ginger
3 stalks pandan leaf (optional but it smells better with it)
3-4 cups of stock
Salt to taste

Method:

Heat up 4-5 tbsp oil in wok. Fry garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add in rice and fry till all rice is coated with oil and garlic.

Transfer rice (with garlic and ginger) to rice cooker. Add stock (I normally add the stock till it comes up to the first line of my middle finger when I place my finger on top of rice).

Add 1 tsp of salt. Add pandan leaves and cook.

Ingredients for chicken:

3 chicken thighs

Marinade:
3 tbsp sesame oil
3 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp 5 spice

Mix ingredients for marinade and pour over chicken. Let it sit for an hour. Sometimes I marinate it over night.

Heat oven to 200 degrees. Place chicken onto baking dish. Pour 1 ladle of stock into the baking dish. Cover with foil and roast for 45 minutes. Remove foil to let skin crisp. Serve.