Pressure Cooker Hainanese Chicken Rice

The National Dish of Singapore Gets The Pressure Cooker Treatment

Hainanese Chicken Rice is not only the unofficial national dish of Singapore, but is also very popular in parts of Malaysia and Thailand as well as in a few other Asian countries.

I have a co-worker from Malaysia who is always raving about this dish, so I figured I would check it out. I didn’t have any leftovers to give him a sample, but he did say it looked really authentic in the pictures. And since I had never had it before this, I don’t know if it is authentic either. But I do know that it was darn tasty.

The recipe might seem a bit confusing at first because it is composed of several components, but what we are basically doing is cooking a chicken then using the broth as the base for the other components.

It probably takes around 90 minutes in all to make this, but you really are making an entire meal, not just an entree.

I would highly recommend getting a high-quality free range chicken for this. I got a 3.5 pound one from our local butcher shop and it was delicious. A 3.5 pound chicken is only enough for 2-3 people. If you need to make more, you can use chicken pieces since a much larger chicken will not fit in a lot of pressure cookers. It should work fine.

In addition to the chicken, we are also making rice, chili sauce and a soup.

First, let’s make the chicken:

Clean the chicken and cut off any excess fat and the neck, if attached. These can be thrown into the broth and removed later.

Cut 3 of the green onions into one-inch pieces

Smash 6 cloves of the garlic with the side of a chef’s knife

Cut one of the shallots into thin slices

Wash a one inch piece of ginger and slice thinly (you don’t need to peel this)

Take the green onions, garlic, shallots and ginger and put half in the chicken cavity and half in the pressure cooker pot

Place the chicken in the pot

Add two cups no salt chicken stock and 4 cups water to the pressure cooker (there should be enough to almost cover the chicken, leaving an inch or two of the chicken above the liquid

Add in about a teaspoon of salt

Turn heat to high, place top on pressure cooker and bring to high pressure

When pressure is reached, set the timer for 20 minutes

While the chicken is cooking, you can prepare the rest of the vegetables

Finely chop the other shallot

Finely chop the remaining four cloves of garlic

Take another 1 inch piece of ginger, peeled this time, and finely chop it

When the timer sounds, remove pressure cooker from heat and let pressure come down on its own

Carefully remove chicken to platter or carving board to let cool

With a slotted spoon, take out any large pieces of vegetables, fat, etc. that may be in the broth.

Now for the rice:

If you are going to be using the same pressure cooker for the rice, transfer broth to another pot. If you are using a second pressure cooker, move along, nothing to see here.

In the pressure cooker pot heat 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Add about a heaping teaspoon each of the ginger, garlic and shallot

Sauté until it starts to soften a little, do not brown.

Add in the rice and continue to sauté until rice just starts to become translucent

Add three cups of the broth

Turn heat to high, stir, then put top on pressure cooker

Cook at high pressure for four minutes

When time is up, let the pressure come down for ten minutes, then do a quick release

Take top off pressure cooker and let sit

Let’s make some hot sauce:

I cheated a bit on the sauce. It would usually be made from fresh red peppers, but I didn’t find any red peppers at the store, everything they had was green, so I started with Sriracha Sauce.

Depending on how much heat you are comfortable with, put 1/4 to 1/2 cup Sriracha in blender jar. Add 1/2 cup of the broth, the juice of 1 lime, 1 teaspoon of the ginger, 1 teaspoon of garlic and 1 tablespoon honey. Blend until smooth.

Last but not least, the soup:

Thinly slice two green onions (white and light green parts) and place in two small soup bowls.

Divide the broth that is left between the two bowls.

And there you have it!

Slice the white meat from the chicken, and remove legs and wings, leaving on the bone

Serve with cucumber and tomato slices.

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