Singapore - Singapore Chicken Rice

Singapore is famous for it's food diversity. It's national fruit is the Durian fruit which has a strong smell described as "pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock" and suggests "Your breath will smell as if you'd been French-kissing your dead grandmother". Lovely!

I'll stick to their national dish of Singapore rice instead. It's chicken and rice served with sauces to dip the chicken in. Sounds much nicer. :D

Ingredients:

1 chicken
8 garlic cloves
3 inches ginger
5 spring onions
2 tomatoes
1 cucumber half
2 cups jasmine rice
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup coriander
2 teaspoons salt
1 onion
2 tablespoons sesame oil

 Poke a 2 inch piece of ginger, 3 garlic cloves and 2 spring onions into the chicken's cavity.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and submerge the chicken in it. I had to bring out my jam pan so the chicken would fit. Bring the water to a boil again and then remove from the heat and cover. This seems like a weird way to cook a chicken. You leave it covered for 40 minutes, turning the chicken over after 20 minutes.

While the chicken is floating around the pan of hot water chop up the remaining inch of ginger, 5 garlic cloves and an onion.

 Saute them in the sesame oil until done then add the rice. Stir the rice so it's covered in the oil and when it starts to crackle add the chicken stock.

Add the chopped coriander and leave to simmer until the rice is cooked.

Next, prepare the dipping sauces and vegetables to go with this dish. We had a bowl of dark soy sauce, a bowl of chilli sauce, sliced cucumber, chopped tomatoes and sliced spring onions.

When the chicken's 40 minutes are up, remove it from the pan and dry it on some paper towels. Take the meat off the chicken as you usually would and serve with the rice and accompaniments 

I'd expected more flavour from the chicken since I'd stuffed it's cavity with assorted delicious things but it just tasted like regular plain chicken. It was delicious dipped in the chilli sauce though. The best part of this meal was the rice. It was fantastic on it's own but even better with the salad accompaniments mixed into it (as JD discovered). Leigh and Erin weren't impressed but JD and I really enjoyed this meal. The chicken was only just cooked after it's steam bath so I'd suggest boiling for a few minutes more before removing the chicken from the heat if you try this. Overall a lovely meal with lots of different combined flavours due to the sauces and vegetables. We'll be having the rice cooked this way again.