Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice

Boon Tong Kee Chicken Rice

I've decided to find this recipe once and for all so that I don't ever have to look for it ever again!

I haven't tried it though, although I've made chicken rice before.. but will definitely try it soon!

The Recipe

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For the chicken

Ingredients (serves about 5 people)
* 1.8kg white-skinned chicken
* 50g ginger, sliced
* 2 bulbs spring onion, split into half and tied together
* 20g salt

1. Put the chicken into a large pot. Press its head down and add water until it covers the whole chicken to gauge the amount of water needed to boil the chicken.

2. Take chicken out.
3. Add salt to water. Put in sliced ginger and spring onion.
4. Boil the water.

5. When the water is bubbling, hold the chicken by the head and put the rest of the body back into the pot. Life it up and repeat the motion 5 times, so that the boiling water will cook the insides of the chicken.

6. Put the whole chicken back into the pot, making sure that the head is under the water.

7. Cover the pot and turn off the heat. Leave the chicken in the hot pot for about one hour.

8. For authentic Cantonese-style chicken, take the chicken out only half an hour before you serve. Then wash the chicken under running tap water or ice water. The taste will be slightly blander but the meat will be more tender.

9. Keep the thick stock for the rice.


For the rice

Ingredients (for about 10 servings)
* 1kg rice (Zheng Ming Huo Pan Thai fragrant rice)
* 30g garlic
* 30g shallots
* 40g old ginger
* 20g salt
* 10g sugar
* 20g chicken essence
* 100g chicken fat
* 1.2kg chicken stock

1. Wash the rice, so that it can absorb enough water to be cooked properly later.
2. Drain water and leave the rice to dry for half an hour.
3. Dice the garlic, shallots and old ginger. Mix them together.
4. Take a spoonful of the mixture (about 20g) and fry it in the chicken fat until the mixture turns golden brown.
5. Pour in the chicken stock. Add salt, sugar and chicken essence. Stir till they dissolve completely.
6. Add rice to boiling stock. Stir until most of the stock evaporates, leaving a pot of fragrant, moist rice.


(source: The Sunday Times, 16 July 2006).

Edited:

My experience - It turned out to be very very very GOOD!! I say it beats all the shops selling singaporean chicken rice in London (of course) and some of the chicken rice stalls in Singapore. Yes it was that good. So good that I could hardly imagine so. I thought maybe I was really hungry, but Dec gave good reviews too! And i didn't even follow the recipe strictly.

This is what I did that was different from above:

To make the soup / stock

1. Put half of the garlic, ginger and onions to boil. Add some parsley (or coriander or spring onions if you like) and a little bit of salt.

2. When it boils, add in the chicken. I used drumsticks and chicken thighs, so didn't have to do the dipping method. It should stop bubbling.

3. When it starts to bubble again, switch off the fire. Take out the garlic, ginger and onions. The rest - follow as above.

For the rice

1. After frying the ingredients, I also added the garlic, ginger and onions from the soup to give it double the impact.

2. You don't have to use a lot of chicken fat if you don't want to (probably more healthy anyway). You can of course reduce the amount of sugar. But from experience, a little sugar without actually making the rice taste sweet actually improves the taste a lot. Same goes for Nasi Lemak rice.

3. You have to wash the rice and leave it stand for a while so that it will cook faster later

4. And you have to ditch the rice cooker. The only way to make nice, seemingly "oily" or shiny rice is to cook it in a pot or wok over the stove. The rice cooker cooks it for too long and evaporates all the moisture. Make sure you have a good nonstick pot/wok though.

5. If all the stock is absorbed but your rice is not fully cooked, just switch off the fire and let it stand for a while. The heat from the wok will continue to cook the rice.

Oh and i didn't use the chicken essence... But imagine how yummy it will be if I did!!

Will definitely post some pictures the next time i cook this.. and i just can't wait!