Khao Mun Gai ข้าวมันไก่ Thai Style Hainanese Chicken Rice

Long before being called the "Hawaii of China" with some of its most expensive real estates in China, Hainan Island in south eastern China was famous for one thing namely the irresistible Hainanese chicken rice. Migrants brought this simple dish to South East Asia and became one of the most popular dishes of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Everyone has their favourite version and since the method of cooking the rice and bird remained basically unchanged, it is the condiments served along side the dish that sets them apart. Malaysians love to serve it with a garlicky chili sauce, the Singaporean would have the same but some extra sweet dark soy on the side, meanwhile the Thais are happy with an equally addictive bean paste sauce. The beauty about this dish is you can just cook the chicken and rice and as long as you have prepared all the different sauces mentioned above you will be able to keep everyone happy. Since this is an unofficial "Thai week at the tummies'", I will be showing you the Thai version - khao mun gai (directly translater as rice-oil/fat-chicken and you'll see why) today.

Updated on 17/01/12 - click HERE for the Malaysian version.

serve 4
you'll need;
1 free range chicken, cleaned and excess fat removed*
2 garlic cloves
3 coriander roots
5 cm knob of ginger, sliced
1 shallot, halved
dash of soy
dash of Chinese cooking wine
salt and white pepper to taste
spicy ginger and chili bean sauce (nam chim tao jiaw)to serve
cucumber, peeled and sliced to serve
spring onion to serve
bokchoy, washed and halved**
* use this to render the chicken fat needed
** blanch and serve in the chicken poaching broth

for the rice;
2 cups of jasmine rice, washed, rinsed and drained
3 tbs of chicken lard 
2 garlic cloves, minced
chicken poaching stock

Ingredients for the poached chicken.

Place chicken and aromatics in a stock pot and cover with enough salted water. Bring it to a boil, simmer for 10 minutes then turn off the heat, cover and let the chicken steep in the hot stock til it cools down. If you are in a hurry, simmer the chicken for 30 minutes, remove and rinse under cold running water for a minute. 

Remove chicken from the pot, brush with a little sesame oil and cover til it is needed. Cut into neat pieces just before serving. Chicken cooked this way is called white cut chicken (白切雞 pronounced bai qie ji in mandarin or 白斬雞 pronounced bak cham kei in Cantonese) Have you seen my soy poached version? If not click HERE. 

Ingredients for the rice.

Render the chicken fat then saute the minced garlic for a minute before adding the drained rice. Fry it for a minute or two.

Place rice in a rice cooker, add enough stock and cook according to instruction. You can also add a pandan leaf to the rice at this point.

Serve the fragrant rice with some of the tender chicken, cucumber slices, spring onion and some of the addictive sauce. A bowl of the chicken broth with some blanched bokchoy is usually served alongside as well.