Hainanese Chicken & Rice

Dumpling Man really likes Hainan Chicken & Rice.  It's a pretty simple dish that I usually cheat to make since I never wanted to attempt poaching my own chicken and making my own rice.  So I've used various versions of this pre-made seasoning in a jar over the years, and Dumpling Man has always been pleased.  All you do is add a couple scoops to your rice and then pop it in the rice cooker.  As for the chicken, I usually season it and slather it with some ginger and steam it. 

Anyways, I decided to hunker down and do it all from scratch.  Watching the episode of No Reservations, when Anthony Bourdain visits Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken and Rice Stand in Singapore, was the final push to try and do it.  They showed the process of poaching the chicken and using the poaching liquid to make an aromatic delicious rice.  I found an easy enough recipe at Steamy Kitchen.

So when my mom makes bun thanh, which is a kind of Vietnamese chicken noodle soup dish, she says it should be made with a free range chicken.  She's not very clear on why, but it's supposed to be better.  This recipe too, called for a free range chicken.


I have no idea how many pounds the chicken was, but by my guestimation it was at least 4 lbs?

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Vietnamese Chicken Curry

Dumpling Man likes his curries, specifically Thai yellow curries.  I'm not such a fan, but I'll eat it.  It's just a bit too creamy and sweet, but that's exactly how Dumpling Man likes it.  I prefer Vietnamese curry instead which is more fragrant from lemongrass and ginger and saltier from a good helping of fish sauce.  So my curry somehow walks the middle road, and as a result is never sweet enough for Dumpling Man.

I've made this before but with the lemongrass cut into short stalks.  This recipe from Ravenous Couple called for finely sliced lemongrass.  If you've cooked lemongrass before, you'll know that it is not something that softens as you cook.  So, all that lemongrass ended up being lost in the sauce and into my bowl and it was not fun to chew on.  Next time, I'm keeping the lemongrass in stalks so they can be fished out at the end.

Your basics.  I found these mini cans of coconut milk.  Perfect for making a serving of curry like this.  For most recipes, a mini can like this may short change you on the called for amount of coconut milk, but I'd rather have a less coconutty curry than half a can of coconut milk that will slowly mold in the back corner of my fridge.  I randomly picked this curry powder.  It's pretty darn spicy.

First you gotta marinate your meat.  I like to keep my meat in semi-large pieces so that they end up being fall apart tender after a while.  Unfortunately, it takes longer to cook that way.

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Roman-Style Chicken

So after a couple days of eating rice, I got a little tired.  I wanted to mix things up and try out an Italian recipe from Giada De Laurentiis, who is turning out to be my favorite and most reliable Food Network chefs.  I've found her recipes to be pretty simple and tasty to boot.  I'm pretty picky about the food I cook and especially about the food I post about.  So you better bet that if I've gone to the effort to make a recipe and even post about, then it should be something you might like.

I don't know how chef's always say you can substitute prosciutto for bacon.  Bacon has a smokiness which I would find distracting in most dishes that call for prosciutto.  I try to make as few substitutions as possible.

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Clay-Pot Miso Chicken

So after a most disastrous attempt to make my own Japanese curry, I felt pretty down and discouraged.  But along came David Chang to make things right in my world.  I've had good luck with some other David Chang recipes from his Momofuku cookbook, which I have decided to purchase instead of continuing to leach his recipes from random internet sites.  I've never eaten at Momofuku, but I have heard such great things and all his recipes look fun and interesting.

So I actually got the recipe from a once great and active fellow food blogger.  She decided to do one recipe in the Momofuku cookbook everyday until she cooked everything in the book.  Since she finished, her blog has now become defunct.

Sorry I don't have many pictures of how I got here, but I'll probably make this again and update it.

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Niwattori

What is Niwatori?  Smooth Obturator called it a "chicken place," so that probably explains why I never jumped at the chance to eat here.  Chicken is definitely not something I get excited for.  I rarely order chicken when I dine at fancy restaurants, because I feel like chicken is just so ordinary.  I woudln't want to eat anything at a restaurant that I could eat at home.

DonBon was in town for some business so he called up his cousins, myself and Smooth Obturator to see if we were free for dinner.  I figured if I was going to drive an hour to get to the South Bay that we might as well eat around there too.  Finally, I relented and agreed to go to the "chicken place" since my brother said it was quite special.  They're specialty is Jidori chicken, which to this day I'm still not quite sure what that means.

Asazuke lightly pickled vegetables
After making all our selections, we noticed a dearth of greenery.  I just love pickled vegetables.  I can eat them plain, but of course they taste best eaten with rice and meat.  Yum!  These were more on the salty pickled side (as opposed to sour or sweet) but had some bite to it with thin slivers of ginger that were pickled too.

Cold Chawanmushi chilled egg custard, shrimp, crab meat
I was quite impressed with this, mostly because it was pretty chilly!  But it was very smooth with decent sized chunks of fresh sweet shrimp and crab.  I really liked the jelly stuff on top which was probably some congealed broth or sauce of sorts.  It added a bit of sweet soy taste.

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Chinese Chicken & Potato Stew

So I found this recipe on another food blog. The picture of the end product looked delicious, so I had to have me some of it, of course. So courtesy of World Foodie Guide we have Chinese Chicken and Potato Stew.

The stewing includes potatoes, shitake mushrooms, carrots, leeks. I would say the leeks are probably the key ingredient. They really give the soup a sweet yet fragrant flavor, oniony without all the pungency. I love it. It reminds me of a beef stew my mom would make. I think its essentially the same thing, the only difference is the soy sauce and ginger. Really makes it "Chinese" in my opinion.


The Stew:

• 4-6 good sized dried Chinese mushrooms
• carrots
• leek
• potatoes
• onions
• 3 slices fresh ginger, with peel left on
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 or 3 spring onions
• vegetable oil
• ½ tsp sugar
• ½ tsp soy sauce

The recipe is unclear about how much chicken you should use. It says use a "whole chicken." Well I don't like everything in a whole chicken. I love thighs so that's what I usually cook with. I just bought a package from the market which usually has about 6 pieces, roughly 2-2.5lbs. The "marinade" is so light, so I'm not sure if its meant for less chicken or what so I increase the portions a bit.

Chicken Marinade:

• 1 tsp salt
• pinch white pepper
• 1½ tbsp soy sauce
• ½ tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• cornflour / cornstarch
• 1 chicken

So you basically fry up the ginger and garlic in some hot oil. Get the pot all nice and fragrant before you add the chicken. The first time I made this I used whole thighs and the darn thing took hours to cook. The 2nd time I cut off the bone, but still cooked the bones for the extra flavor. It could in maybe 40 min? Definitely a time saver! Anyways, the marinade really allows the chicken to get some color and flavor initially before you start stewing everything. It really smells as good as it looks.




Then you add all the veggies and mix mix mix.



Then you add water. The first time I used water as instructed and I was really annoyed I had to add so much salt, soy sauce, and fish sauce so it wasn't so bland. The 2nd time I cheated and used chicken stock so it didn't need as much seasoning but I found that the flavor wasn't as pure and I couldn't control the taste as much.


So the next part is just stew stew stew. Although the end product doesn't look as appetizing as the picture from the blog seen here, I give it 2 thumbs up!





I'm not often times impressed with my own cooking, but my final product was certainly tastey and homey. Good to have when you're craving something warm and soupy but still substantial. I blame the crappy picture for robbing my stew of its true deliciousness. Come over and I'll make you some so you can taste for yourself!

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