Hainanese Chicken

Ingredients

• 2-3lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
  
• ~4 cloves of garlic
  
• 1-2 lobes of ginger, minced or grated
  
• 1 onion, chopped
  
• 3 scallions, chopped
  
• 2c rice, thoroughly washed
  
• sesame oil, soy sauce, sriracha, black vinegar
  

In a pot, add the chicken, garlic, and ginger and enough water to just coat the chicken - about 5 cups for us, I think? Depends on the size pot, I guess. Bring the water to a boil, add some salt, and reduce to a simmer. Cook until the chicken is cooked through - about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on whether you started with frozen. The original recipe had you cook for 10 minutes then leave sit for 45, but we weren't too happy with the way it looked, so we just cooked it until it was done.

Remove the chicken to a cutting board and shred. Reserve the broth in a measuring cup. Add the onion to the pot with a little sesame oil and maybe some extra garlic and ginger. Cook until the onion is translucent and softened, then add the rice. Toss that around for a little bit, then add 2.5c of the broth (for us, I think this is all that was left - the closer you can come to hitting the 2.5c mark when you're done with the chicken, the better). Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and cover, cooking for 10 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let the rice sit for an additional 10 minutes before you uncover and fluff the rice.

Serve the rice topped with the chicken. Sprinkle with scallions and a sauce made of soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, and sriracha. I think we actually ran out of soy sauce so we used "tempura dipping sauce" (which contains many of the same ingredients but it's a little sweeter - it was really good). We also served this with tomato, which I think we agree was kind of unnecessary.

Thoughts: Aside from the fact that you will feel you need more vegetables while eating this, it's really fantastic. I mean, you COULD add carrot, water chestnut, bamboo shoots, or whatever you're interested in and the dish probably wouldn't suffer (I'd cook them with the rice). But it's totally unnecessary. One of the most important factors in this dish is the sauce at the end - you have to do a lot of adjusting to make it just right, but it's really good. As mentioned above, when we decided to make this, we started by boiling the chicken for 10 minutes and then letting it sit. This didn't work at all. Maybe it's because our chicken was frozen? Anyway, I'd definitely consider making this again - it was really easy and quite good. Not all that healthy, perhaps, but who really cares?

Disaster Index: 1/10