GrandMa's Chicken Rice

Chicken rice

You know, there is absolutely nothing more comforting than the smell of chicken rice cooking in your kitchen. The rice and the spices....Mmmh!

Needless to say, I was craving for some chicken rice. I didn't really have the time nor the means to cooking a full fledge chicken rice like those Hainanese fellas back home but I have a makeshift recipe that my mom passed on to me, passed on by her mom, mind you. This chicken rice is a simpler version, made for those who craves chicken rice but is unable to cook it like those Hainanese fellas.

My maternal grandma is half hainanese btw. I suppose she does have a bit of the hainanese flair cooking this chicken rice because she said her grandma taught her! O_o I lost count of how many generation this recipe is from but what the hey...:)

Her chicken rice consists of a whole chicken boiled in a stock made out of garlic cloves, cinnamon stick, aniseeds, onions, peppercorns and sometimes carrots and radishes. She is by no means a chef but she makes do with whatver that goes well to sweeten the stock. After the chicken is done, she'll use the same stock to cook her rice. Sometimes she'll add a clove or two and some screwpine leaves (or pandan leaves) for the aroma.

While the rice is cooking she'll chop the chicken into pieces; she's good at chopping chicken unlike me. I don't chop my chicken, I hack them into pieces. And she'll place the pieces nicely on a plate just like those Hainanese fellas do with their chicken. The major bones on the chicken are taken off leaving only the wings, thighs and drumstick bones intact.

Then she makes her special soy sauce. She adds 2 stalks of chopped spring onions, 3 slices worth of minced ginger, 1 clove of minced garlic, 1 red chili (omittable) and a handful of chopped parsley into a bowl. Then, she poured about ( i'm approximating because my grandma and mom never use any measurements in their cooking) 3 tablespoon of soy sauce, 2 tablespoon of oyster sauce (or vegetarian oyster sauce), 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Stir to mix well and then she'll heat it up on her wok. In this day and age, I just pop it into the microwave for 2 mins. And that is the sauce you eat your chicken pieces with...it tastes So good and it smells great too...

My Meal

My chicken rice is like that except i don't use a whole chicken, just a thigh and i boiled it just like how my grandma did. I even made the sauce to but i halved the portions. And the soup, i added fish ball to it ..:D