Cooking for one is quite a challenge. Every recipe you look at, the measurements are for 4-6 servings, or sometimes bigger. That's okay if you have a family to feed but if there's only yourself, that's 3-4 days worth of casserole, soup, or pasta. For someone who's been on a diet for the past 2 years, that's never a good thing! It tempts you to eat more than you should and worse, you get tired of it and waste the money you spent buying the ingredients.
There are websites out there that will be able to help you scale down (or up, if you need it) the recipes to whatever number of servings you want to do. One such site is
Food.com. My problem with this, however, is that I can't seem to be able to just buy 1 piece of carrot or a fourth of a cup of whatever. I don't have a lot of farmer's markets in the area and all I have is a Walmart and a couple of grocery stores, that don't sell anything in piecemeal (I lie, they do sell some items in piecemeal but you know what I mean!). I kinda miss the markets in the Philippines where you can buy 1 takal of bigas or just a stalk of celery!
Now some people might say, well, if you plan your meals ahead, you will be able to come up with ways to stretch out one recipe into another, or two for a whole week (hello
Rachael Ray's Week in a Day)! I, however, my friends, do not operate that way! I kinda go by feel, as in, what do I feel like eating today! I also get tired of eating the same thing over and over again. A friend of mine said when she was living in SF, she would cook two or three different foods that she would mix and match over a week. Good idea but sometimes I get lazy on the weekends and I just want to lie there and read, eat and sleep! LOL!
So a couple of weekends ago, I felt like eating Hainanese Chicken Rice. It's this Singaporean dish that combines slowly poached chicken with white rice cooked in chicken broth, with chili and soy dipping sauces. I promise you, to die for! I started looking at recipes and all called for a whole chicken. I don't know about you but I'm squeamish about cleaning a whole chicken and carving it when cooked. Haha! I always want to imagine that my chicken comes de-boned and pre-sliced. However, my craving for Hainanese Chicken Rice won so off to the grocery to get one whole chicken. Of course I know I won't be able to eat HCR all week so I thought maybe I can turn some of that chicken into something else... thinking chicken noodle soup or something... By Wednesday, I had turned that HCR into chicken and dumplings and chicken and white bean chili (which at the end is now looking more like chicken tortilla soup), and I still have the legs and wings to turn into maybe adobo or just plain fried chicken (as I write this, those legs and wings became Adobo!).
Here I'm going to share the different recipes I've come up so far, starting with the Hainanese Chicken Rice. It is based on the recipe found in
Jaden Hair's website. Reading through all the comments, gave me the idea to jazz up the soy sauce dip a little bit.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (get the small one, about 3 to 3-1/2 lbs)
kosher salt
4'' section of fresh ginger, in 1/4'' slices
2 stalks green onions, cut into 1" sections (both the green and white parts)
1 teaspoon sesame oil
FOR THE RICE
2 tablespoon chicken fat or 2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1'' section of ginger, finely minced
2 cups long-grain uncooked rice, washed and soaked in cool water for 10 min or longer (me, I just washed once, didn't soak them - basically followed how I've cooked my rice since time immemorial!)
2 cups reserved chicken poaching broth
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
FOR THE CHILI SAUCE
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoon reserved chicken poaching broth
2 teaspoon sugar
2 tbs chili garlic sauce (the recipe called for sriracha but I didn't have that on hand; if you like it hotter, you can go up to as much as 4 tbs)
4 cloves garlic
1'' ginger
a generous pinch of salt, to taste
FOR THE TABLE
1/4 cup dark soy sauce + 1 tbs honey + a drop or 2 of sesame oil - mix together
Few sprigs cilantro
1 cucumber, thinly sliced or cut into bite-sized chunks
tomatoes, thinly sliced
Directions:
1.
To clean the chicken, rub the chicken all over with a handful of kosher salt, getting rid of any loose skin and dirt. As how they described it in the blog, give the chicken a good exfoliation!
2. Rinse chicken
well, inside and outside.
3. Season generously with salt inside and
outside then stuff the chicken with the ginger slices and the green onion.
4. Place the chicken in a large stockpot and fill with cold water to cover
by 1 inch. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat, then immediately turn
the heat to low to keep a simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes more (more if you're using a bigger chicken). Check for doneness by sticking a
chopstick into the flesh under the leg and see if the juices run clear
or insert a thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh not touching
bone. It should read 170F.
5. When the chicken is cooked through,
turn off the heat and remove the pot from the burner. Immediately lift
and transfer the chicken into a bath of ice water to cool and discard
the ginger and green onion. Reserve the poaching broth
for your rice, your sauce, and the accompanying soup.
6. While the chicken is cooling, cook the rice.
7. Wash rice once to get rid of dirt and some of that starch. Drain. In the recipe, it says to soak the rice in water for about 10 minutes. I didn't do that. I was using Jasmine rice which, to me, doesn't really require soaking. If you're using a more starchy rice, like basmati, that might require the soaking. Really up to you and how you cook your rice.
8. In a medium sauce pan, heat 1 tablespoons of cooking oil
over medium-high heat. You notice that in the ingredients list, it says 2 tbs. I wanted to cut back on the oil so I started with 1 tbs. Worked for me. When hot, add the ginger and the garlic and fry
until it gives off this pleasant aroma. Be careful not to burn the
aromatics! Add in your drained rice and stir to coat, cook for 2
minutes. Add the sesame oil, mix well.
9. Add 2 to 2-1/2 cups of your reserved poaching
broth (again, depends on how you cook the rice and/or package directions), add salt and bring to a boil. If you had soaked your rice prior, you may want to start with 2 cups. Immediately turn the heat down to
low, cover the pot and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit
(with lid still on) for 5-10 minutes more. If you have a rice cooker, place the aromatics and rice (after frying) into your rice cooker,
add 2 1/2 cups of your reserved poaching broth and salt. Follow the
instructions for your model (usually this will just mean "turn it on!")
10.
While your rice is cooking, remove the chicken from the ice bath and
rub the outside of the chicken with the sesame oil. Carve the chicken
for serving.
11. Make the chili sauce: Blend your chili sauce ingredients in a blender until smooth and bright red.
12. Make the soup: Remember the reserved poaching liquid? Just before serving, heat up
the soup, taste and season with salt as necessary.
Serve: Place a mound of rice on a plate, top with chicken pieces then serve with chili
sauce, soy sauce mix, cucumber and tomato slices, and a bowl of hot broth
garnished with cilantro or scallions. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
