Chicken Rice

Last weekend my old time classmate, Cheah Ngah Mooi came and visit me from Teluk Intan , she brought me a real kampong chicken. Now aday is quit difficult to buy this type of chicken unless we go into villages to look for them.  Those so called kampong chicken in the markets were from chicken farms that were kept in the cages or long chicken house.  They were not allow to roam around unlike the kampong chickens, they were free to run and chasing around among their friends.  Thus, their meat were really though and sweet compare with those in the farms.

This is the well cleaned kampong male chicken

I will turn this chicken into (pak cham kai) and the chicken  stock to cook chicken rice and herbal soup.

ingredients

for the chicken

1 whole chicken

enough water for boiling

1 thumb sized piece of young ginger(crushed)

5 cloves garlic(peeled and crushed)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp light soy sauce

for the rice

2 cups of rice,washed and drained

2 tbsp of butter

2 cm piece of young ginger, (crushed)

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

salt to taste

3 pandan leaves

2 stalk of lemon grass

3 cups of chicken stock

for chili garlic sauce

8 fresh red chili

2 cm piece of young ginger

5 cloves of garlic

dash of salt

juice of 3 calamansi limes

3 tbsp of chicken stock

In a deep pot, boil the water with the ginger, garlic and salt, put in the chicken and cook for about 15 minutes in medium fire without the cover. Change the position of the chicken in between the cooking time . Turn off the fire and put on the cover of the pot and let the chicken cook in the hot water for 20 to 25 minutes.. Remember to change the position of the chicken again.

Use chopsticks to poke into the tight area of the chicken, the chicken is cooked when there is no more blood flow out from it.  With the help of the chopsticks, poke under the wings area and put the chicken into a cold basin of water for cold bath for 10 minutes.

The chicken is having a cold spa after the hot water bath

The next step is to hang the chicken dry by the strings under the wings.

Brush the mixture of light soy sauce and sesame oil on the whole of the chicken and let dry.

Next is to prepare the rice.  In a wok, heat up the butter, fry the ginger and garlic until fragrant.  Put in the rice and stir fry for 2 minutes.  Transfer all into electric rice cooker.  Pour in the chicken stalk, salt, the pandan leaves and lemon grass and cook the rice.

While waiting for the rice to be cooked and the chicken to be dried, I prepare my chili garlic sauce for dipping.

By using the blender to blend all the ingredients , the chili sauce is ready in just minutes.

The rice is cooked.  Once open the rice pot cover, the aroma of both of the pandan leaves and lemon grass was so pleasant.

Chop the chicken into serving sizes, decorate with some cucumber slices and garnish with spring onion and coriander.