Umami Cooking

Meaty with a dash of veggies

Hainanese chicken congee

Inspired by Hainanese-style white chicken, the poached chicken is served on top of the congee with the traditional ginger-scallion sauce, sweet soy sauce and chili sauce.

Hainese chicken congee with ginger-scallion sauce, sweet soy sauce and chili sauce

Chicken / duck / turkey+ Rice / other grain recipe by

Cook’s notes

My family loves Hainanese-style chicken so much. I have cooked it in the rice cooker and I have also tried giving it a more Southeast Asian flavor.
This is the third iteration of Hainanese-style chicken in my blog and, this time, it is served in a bowl of congee cooked using leftover rice.
If you prefer to cook your congee from scratch, see how to cook congee (minus the myths).

Hainanese chicken congee

Prep: 15 minutes
Cook: 30 minutes
Total: 45 minutes
Servings: 1 bowl of congee
Course: Breakfast, Main Course, Snack
Cuisine: Asian
Label: Congee
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Ingredients

Ginger scallion sauce

  • 1 tablespoon grated ginger
  • 1 teaspoon grated garlic
  • ¼ cup finely sliced scallions
  • ½ teaspoon refined salt
  • ¼ cup peanut oil heated to smoking point

Chicken and congee

  • 1 chicken thigh fillet (about 250 grams / 8.8 oz) skin on
  • rock salt
  • 2 to 2½ cups chicken bone broth (unseasoned or lightly seasoned)
  • ¼ cup Shao Xing wine
  • fish sauce
  • 4 stalks scallions tied together
  • 4 to 6 slices ginger
  • ½ cup leftover cooked rice

To serve

  • sweet soy sauce
  • Sriracha

Instructions

Make the ginger scallion sauce

  1. Place the ginger, garlic, scallions and salt in a heat-proof bowl.
  2. Pour the hot oil over them, stir and set aside.
    Ginger scallion sauce for Hainanese chicken

Cook the chicken

  1. Rinse the chicken and rub generously with rock salt to remove impurities. Rinse thoroughly and dry with kitchen paper.
  2. Boil the chicken bone broth and rice wine in a pot for five minutes the turn down the heat.
  3. Drop in the chicken, scallions and ginger, and pour in two tablespoons of fish sauce.
    Poaching chicken thigh fillet in chicken bone broth
  4. Cook over low heat (the broth should be barely simmering) for ten minutes.
  5. Turn off the heat and leave the chicken in the hot broth for another two to three minutes. Scoop out and rest on a rack.

Cook the congee

  1. Fish out the scallions and ginger from the broth and discard.
  2. Reheat the broth, stir in the cooked rice, and pour in a tablespoon of fish sauce.
    Adding leftover rice to chicken bone broth to make congee
  3. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally and adding more fish sauce, if needed, until the rice grains puff and break into tiny pieces.
  4. Use a wire whisk to briskly stir the rice until the grains are no longer discernible and the mixture is thick.

Serve

  1. Ladle the hot congee into a bowl.
  2. Cut the chicken into half-inch slices and arrange on top of the congee.
  3. Spoon some of the ginger scallion sauce over the chicken.
    Hainese chicken congee with ginger-scallion sauce, sweet soy sauce and chili sauce
  4. Drizzle sweet soy sauce and Sriracha over the rice.
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Meaty with a dash of veggies