HYPEBEAST Eats... Hainanese Chicken Rice by Eddie Huang of Baohaus

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Here are the shallots and ginger being sweated out in butter before the jasmine rice is added.

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This is jasmine rice going into the shallots and ginger that we sauteed.

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Once I toss the rice with aromatics, I cook it in the rice cooker with chicken stock.

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Cutting board with gochujang peppers and the hot sauce that we use them for.

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Here, I'm taking the wing off the chicken after already splitting the breast.

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Gochujang peppers.

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Every culture has their version of chicken and rice. Dominican chicken and rice, Adobo chicken and rice, shit, do French people eat coq au vin with rice? They should. My favorite version has to be Hainan Chicken and Rice (“HCR”). People will disagree about what’s more important to HCR. Is it the flavor of the chicken rice? The tenderness of the chicken? Perhaps it’s as simple as the hot sauce? For me, the key is to use a free range chicken not just because the meat has a deeper cleaner flavor but because it makes the best stock for chicken rice. When done right, your chicken is tender with bouncy skin and carries the aroma of ginger and scallions. The rice should be slightly slick with oil and sharp with shallots, and the hot sauce? You can go in a number of directions. Maybe it’s a strong garlic and chili based sauce or perhaps a fermented soy bean flavor. I chose to do it with 3.5lb whole free range chicken, scallions, long green peppers, shallots, ginger, lime, white pepper, rice vinegar, sugar and rice wine to taste. Sharp, simple, acidic, and clean.

Photography: David Bowles/HYPEBEAST

Ingredients

01 Butter
02 Shallots
03 Ginger
04 Chicken stock
05 Jasmine rice
06 Gochujang hot peppers
07 Rice wine
08 Sugar
09 Salt
10 3.5 lbs free-range chicken
11 Cilantro
12 Sesame oil

Step 1

Here are the shallots and ginger being sweated out in butter before the jasmine rice is added.

Step 2

This is jasmine rice going into the shallots and ginger that we sauteed. Don’t toast the rice, just let it sautee on low heat in the butter for 90 seconds, tossing constantly.

Step 3

Once I toss the rice with aromatics, I cook it in the rice cooker with chicken stock. To remix the dish, you can put dried shitake mushrooms in the stock. Wash/rehydrate them in cold water (45 mins). Reserve that liquid, but put the mushrooms into the boiling water mixture that you’ll cook the chicken in. Then, take the reserved shitake liquid, boil it down and use that instead of fish sauce in your hot sauce for more a Chinese flavor.

Step 4

Gochujang peppers which we’ll use for the hot sauce. Mince these.

Step 5

Hot sauce we made with minced shallots, minced garlic, minced gochujang peppers, rice wine, sugar, salt, and fish sauce. Let sit 30 minutes so it can incorporate.

Step 6

Cutting board for the chicken with long peppers and the hot sauce.

Step 7

Bring scallions, ginger, white pepper, salt, rice wine, and water to a boil. Then put a 3.5lbs free range chicken in the rolling boil for 24 minutes covered. Take out the chicken, drop it in an ice bath so the skin gets gelatinous and bouncy. Here, I’m taking the wing off the chicken after already splitting the breast.