Hainanese Poached Chicken

petithamu

This is a easy peasy way of cooking chicken and make sure it has flavor and it's healthy at the same time. Hainanese chicken is a traditional Malaysian dish that is healthy and flavorful without the use of too much oil or stir frying like in most Asian cuisine. You can do this with either chicken breasts or a whole chicken. I often do it with the whole chicken and stuff the cavity with the ingredient. After it's cooled down, I'd take the chicken apart and reserve all the meat. I always serve it with rice cooked with the broth for extra flavor. Anyway, here you go:

Serves 4ppl
Cal - 199
Carb - 3
Fat - 3
Protein - 38
Fiber - 1
Sodium - 170

Chicken breasts (skinless) x 4 - appx 170gram per breast
Spring onion x 4-5 stalks - each stalk tie in a loose knot
Ginger root x 5 slices
Salt
Ice cubes
Water
Sesame oil x 1tsp

There are a few ways to do this. The easiest way is to just throw everything in a pot. Take a pot, fill it with enough water that breasts will submerged completely in water. Over the stove and get it to boil. Once boil, sprinkle some salt, put in the chicken breasts, the spring onion and the ginger, turn the heat to low - med immediately, cover with lid and let it simmer (poach) slowly for appx 10 - 12 minutes. Check after 10 minutes, I'd poke the middle with a fork and there should be no blood water coming out. Immediately take the breasts out of the pot and put it in a ice bath, this will stop the chicken from cooking. Once cooled, rub sesame oil all over the breasts. Leave to the side.

If you want to make sure the taste of spring onion and ginger really infused the chicken, Make a insertion in the chicken breast, make it like a pouch. Chopped spring onion and the ginger, mix it with salt and sesame oil, then stuff the mixture in the chicken. Secure the opening with a tooth pick. Then the rest method stays the same.

Hainanese rice: (This is a recipe when using a rice cooker. Unfortunately, I've never cooked rice over the hob before since we've always had a rice cooker. You may have to adjust the liquid when cooking on the stove)

Serves 4 - 6 ppl
Cal - 237
Carbs - 48
Fat - 3
Protein - 4
Fiber - 1
Sodium - 5
(The above nutrition count is based on the rice I used, Tamaki short grain rice. The type of rice you use will change the nutrition content)

Rice (brown is best) x 2 cups
The flavored chicken broth from the pot x 4 cups
Garlic x 2 cloves, minced
Sesame oil x 1/2 tbs

Rinse the rice as you would normally. Quickly saute the minced garlic with sesame oil, throw in the uncooked drained rice and mix it all together. Transfer it to the rice cooker and add broth and let it cook. If it's over the stove, cook the rice as you normally would just use the broth instead of regular water.

Put it all together:
You can slice the chicken at a slight angle. Serve it over rice with some steamed choy sum (green Chinese vegetable) and if I had time, I'd make a sauce but that adds on the calories so I just use a tablespoon of seasoned soy sauce and sprinkle some Japanese chili powder to give it a kick and voila!)

Hope you all will like it!

knowmydestiny

sounds very tasty!