Hainanese Chicken Rice

My dad suddenly had a craving to eat steamed chicken hence he requested mom to make one for dinner. Mom and I had to change our planned menu to accomodate his sudden request and so we scurried to the market to get a kampung chicken (free range chicken) and some other necessary ingredients. For the 1st time, I got to witness my mom cooking the chicken from scratch instead of following her instructions over the phone. And so her secret recipe is out and she allowed me to share it over here in my blog.

Ingredients :

1 medium size kampung chicken

ginger - 3 mid sized chunks , roughly smashed

10 ginger - thickly sliced

3 long stalks of spring onion
salt

Method :

1. Drain chicken well and rub salt all over the chicken, inside out. Then stuff the spring onions and smashed ginger inside the cavity. Let it marinate for at least half an hour.

2. In a big pot, fill up water that will cover the entire chicken. Boil it with sliced ginger and the internal parts of the chicken

3. When the water starts to boil, hold the chicken by its legs and dip the chicken into the water for about 8 times. Then leave the entire chicken in the pot and turn down the fire to very slow boiling. Do not cover the pot with lid. Let the chicken boil in the pot for about 40 to 45 mins. Remove chicken and set aside to cool before chopping into pieces.

To make the soup, we added cabbages, tofu and carrot in it

My cooking tips : If you are one that shuns chicken which is just nicely cooked (some blood visible when chicken is chop), then leave the chicken in the pot over slow fire for an additional 10 mins. Of course, if your chicken is huge, you may need to adjust the cooking time yourself.