QUICK TAKEAWAYS
- soul of the dish is chicken oil rice, cut off the fat from chicken thigh for frying later
- chicken soup has multiple usage: sauce, cooking rice, side dish to moist rice and chicken
- chicken oil can also be used to make sauce
- chicken should be cooked at 60-80C for more than 40mins, dependent on the size of thigh
RECIPE
4-8 chicken thighs for 4 people. No need to de-bone. But CUT OFF chicken fat.
Chicken Soup:
Step 1: tighten chicken skin
- boil hot water
- dip chicken thigh in boiling water, up & down, 3 times
- place in icy cold water right away
- these 2 steps shrink the chicken skin, and make it tighter and chewy
- take chicken thigh out of icy water after 2-3 mins
Step 2: chicken soup — the essence
- in another pot, bring water to boil with these ingredients
- 1-2 green onions
- a few slices of ginger
- lemongrass (I do not have)
- pandan leaves (I do not have either 🙁 )
- galangal 南姜 (I do not have… )
- turn down temperature to low, or turn off (whichever brings soup down to 60-80C)
- put in chicken thighs, monitor temperature to be within 60-80C range, till chicken thighs are cooked (3/4 for electric stove)
- poke near bone and no blood coming out
- chicken soup will be used for sauce and rice cooking
- when chicken is done, bring out for cooling down; can also dip in cold water for 2-3 mins
boil soup with ingredients first 
maintains at 60-80C
Chicken Oil Rice! 鷄油飯!
this IS the essence of Hainanese chicken rice instead of the chicken
- heat up a pan, when pan is heated, add oil 熱鍋下油
- + chicken fat you cut off earlier, turn down heat to low – medium low (3 for my electric stove)
- + 1/4 finely chopped onion
- + lemongrass root (I do not have)
- fry till onion becomes golden (10-15mins)
15mins till golden
- scoop a few spoons of oil for making sauce (below)
- + 4-5 cloves of finely chopped garlic, be careful not to burn the garlic, otherwise will have bitter taste
- when garlic turns slightly golden, add in washed & drained rice, stir rice so oil coat all the rice
- when you can smell rice’s aroma or when rice turns slightly transparent, puffing up a little bit, transfer rice into rice cooker
puffed up and less transparent
- place a few pieces of ginger on top of rice
- scoop chicken soup into rice pot so chicken soup covers rice and 1-2mm above (less water than usual because rice has been stir fried in pan)
- cook rice!
- My rice turns out to be more oily than I thought, so I chopped a few slices of cucumber and cilantro into small cubes and mixed in with rice; the raw cucumber and cilantro could add in some fresh taste to rice and decrease the greasiness of chicken oil rice
less soup than usual water amount 
Sauces:
Ginger, garlic, green onion sauce 姜蓉蒜蓉香葱醬料
- grated ginger
- finely chopped garlic
- finely chopped green onion
- hot chicken skin oil from chicken oil rice
- chicken soup
- salt
- optional sugar when one of the spice/ingredient is too strong
Sweet & Spicy pepper sauce 甜辣醬
- garlic pepper sauce (Lee Kum Kee)
- sugar
- vinegar
- chicken soup
Plating!
- rice
- chicken debone and cut into pieces, add some soup on top if looks dry after sitting outside for too long
- sliced cucumber, sauteed with salt
- chop cilantro
- serve with sauce and chicken soup
READY TO SERVE!
Resources
Rich ingredients!
Very funny and clear demonstration and explanation :p
