Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 45 minutes

We want to poach the chicken for 2 reasons: (1) for the meat to turn out moist and tender, (2) to get a resulting stock that is the key ingredient to other components (chilli, rice & soup) of your homemade chicken rice.

Ingredients

• Bunch of spring onions - both the white & green parts

• 3 garlic cloves

• Knob of ginger

• Whole chicken - we used 800g - 1kg slow-growth, organic chicken

Tips

1. We’ll highly recommend to buy a chicken on the fattier side.

2. Feel free to adjust the amount of each ingredient added based on your preference and/or weight of chicken. This will be the soup that is served eventually.

Method

• Prepare a stock pot about 2/3 filled with water and turn on heat to medium

• Dry the chicken thoroughly, trim off the fat and set aside to use for the rice

• Cut off chicken wings and claws and add to stock pot

• Rub salt evenly all over chicken, including the inside of the carcass

• Cut spring onions in long lengths

• Remove the skin and lightly smash garlic cloves

• Roughly cut ginger into chunks or pound roughly using a pestle and mortar, skin on or off is fine

• Add all aromatics into the stock pot, the water doesn’t need to boil, but should be hot with some steam - this is the perfect temperature for poaching

• Dip the whole chicken into the pot 2-3 times and let the cavity fill up with the liquid - this ensures that the hot water is also in the carcass so the chicken can cook evenly

• After the 20 minute mark, turn the chicken so both sides cook evenly in the pot

• The chicken will be done in 45 minutes

• Prepare an ice bath for the poached chicken in a large bowl

• Let the chicken sit in the ice bath for 10 minutes, turning it every 2 to 3 minutes - this improves the texture of the skin and also locks in all the juices of the meat!

You’ll be left with a flavourful chicken stock that is gold for the sauce that will be poured over the cut chicken, as well as for cooking the rice, making the chilli sauce and soup to serve at the table!

Poached chicken sauce

• 1 ladle of stock

• Light soy sauce

• Sesame oil

• Sugar (optional) - but we found that adding just a little creates an additional depth of flavour

In a serving platter, slice a generous amount of cucumbers for the cut chicken pieces to go on top of then pour the sauce over before serving! Remember a huge handful of coriander too!

Cabbage soup

• Add cut cabbage & carrots to the stock pot

• Cook the vegetables to preferred doneness and season the soup to taste with salt

We look forward to this soup every time we make chicken rice at home. You can serve the stock as soup as-is, without vegetables too. Just remember to add salt, if needed!