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When I was in high school, lunchtime would be only me and my mom as I finished school at 1.30pm. We mostly have leftovers from the night before, but very often she would send me to the local hawker stores (street food) to take away some chicken rice. As she did not speak cantonese, I was sent in to place the order. There are usually a variety of meats available , from the traditional ‘white’ chicken to char xiu and roasted duck. I only ever go for one. Without a doubt, I would always order the roasted chicken breast with extra chilli dipping sauce. Every single time. Even now. I drench my roast chicken breast with the sweet, tangy and spicy light chili sauce, which pairs up wonderfully with the rice cooked in chicken stock and lightly uplifted by a drizzle of soya sauce.

Living in the UK, Hainanese Chicken rice was one of the first item that was added to my repertoire. I have ordered it from a takeaway here before, but it does not even come anywhere near. And now that I’ve got the hang of it, I can make this from scratch under an hour, making it an easy enough weekday dinner when I feel a pang of homesickness, or just need to turn a whole chicken into something wonderful.

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Roasted Hainanese Chicken Rice
serves 4

1 whole chicken
4 inch ginger
1.5 tbs 5-spice powder
flaked sea salt
1 stalk spring onion
1 cucumber
soya sauce

Rice
3.5 cup jasmine rice
4 cup stock
1 inch ginger
2 pandanus leaves, tied in a knot
1 tbs butter

Soup
1 carrot
1 celery stalk
2 cabbage leaves
cracked white pepper

Chili sauce
2 inch ginger
1 clove garlic
2 chilli
splash of rice vineger
1/3 cup water
2 tbs sugar

1) Get prepared. Turn the kettle on (around 1.5l water); place the chicken and ginger in the pot. Chop up the veggies, put them in the pot with the chicken and pour the boiling water in until it just covers the chicken. Let it boil rapidly for 10 minutes, skimming surface scum. You want a light stock, but the veggies can continue to simmer after you’ve removed the chicken.

2) Meanwhile, place all the ingredients for the chilli sauce in a food processor, and whiz away. Bear in mind that chillies vary in amount of heat, so please ensure you keep tasting it to ensure that it is to your taste. If it is too spicy, add sugar/water. Preheat the oven to 220 C.

3) Wash the rice, place the pandanus leaves and ginger. Slice some spring onions and cucumber

4) Take out the chicken, and plunge in ice cold water to stop cooking. Pat dry. Rub ginger slices on the skin, tucking in pieces between the chicken drumsticks, wings ect. Gently rub the 5-spice powder on the skin of the chicken, and sprinkle flaked sea salt all over the skin. This will crisp up the chicken. Pop in oven.

5) Scoop in 4 cups of the chicken soup in the rice cooker (or pot) to cook the rice in. Turn it on to cook. When rice is cooked (roughly 20 mins) , rest covered for 5 minutes, and then stir in the butter. Replace cover.

6) Test the chicken for cook-ness after 40 minutes. Leave to sit for 5 minutes, before slicing it up.

7) Serve it up with rice topped with soya sauce and spring onion, cucumber on the side. Chilli sauce and the sliced chicken can be served family-styled or individually. Serve up the remaining chicken soup in individual bowls

Enjoy!!!

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PS: Traditionally, Hainanese Chicken Rice is just white chicken. You can do this by skipping the roasting part. Boil the chicken in the soup for 30 minutes, and plunge into ice cold water to tighten the skin up. Leave to rest, keeping warm before serving.

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Love it or hate it, Marmite divides the culinary world into half. I am an exception – I don’t mind marmite/vegemite, but I don’t yearn for it like some people. I’ll have it if it’s there, but would very rarely venture out and get myself a jar. Used in a cooking though, marmite takes on a completely different character completely.

I had previously made marmite ribs, which caramalised baby back ribs into a lip-smacking finger-lickin dish. Marmite chicken is a dish that is popular in Malaysia and Singapore in chinese ‘tai chou’ places – where families and friends usually orders a couple of dishes to share with their party with steamed white rice. I find that ‘tai chou’ chefs are an inventive and creative lot, I’ve had other odd dishes before like watermelon pork. Hmm.

The dish itself is fairly simple in composition; however the flavours are complex but light. Chicken pieces are usually deep-fried, and then tossed in a thick sauce made of marmite and honey. That’s it. But when you use marmite in cooking, it takes on a completely different character and loses its yeasty smell that puts so many people off. Paired with steamed white rice and a side of stirfried vegetables, this is a perfect weekday dinner whipped up in 30 minutes. I panfried my chicken instead of deep-frying, but that’s just because I ran out of oil .

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Marmite chicken serves 2

500g chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 inch minced ginger
1 clove minced garlic
2 tbs marmite
1 tbs honey (more if you prefer it sweeter)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp toasted sesame

marinade
1 tbs cooking wine (shaoxing wine)
1 tbs light soy sauce
1 tsp marmite
1 tbs cornflour

1) Marinade the chicken for at least 1 hour. I usually do this overnight; just put it on the night before and it is ready to cook when I get home from work the next day. Deep fry or pan fry chicken until golden brown. Drain the oil and set chicken aside.

2) Fry the ginger and garlic in a little oil until fragant. Add the rest of the ingredients (except sesame), plus leftover marinade. Simmer until the sauce thickens, stirring constantly to ensure that the honey in the sauce does not cause it to burn to the pan. This should be a few minutes.

3) Add in chicken, completely coating it with the sauce. Sprinkle in sesame seeds. Serve up with a simple vegetable stirfry and freshly steamed white rice.

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Lately I seemed to be in a craze of cooking food from my childhood. Maybe it’s the Chinese New Year spirit reminding me of home, or maybe it’s just I really needed some low down comfort food because of the spate of grey weather we’ve been experiencing. Maybe its bacon. Whatever it is, this is another dish that I cooked upon his request. I have not made this in ages, but it is one of bacon’s most favourite dish. I very rarely cook this because I had only recently got a food processor – spending ages pounding and grinding it with a mortar and pestle. So lucky bacon!

It is again, another dish that goes well with nasi lemak. It is usually available in ‘pick-your-own’ food stores as well, from the chinese ‘chap farn’ to the mamak nasi kandar stores. It is more typical of being a side dish rather than the main dish; you can have this with curry chicken or perhaps rendang and a side of cucumber salad or stirfried veggies.

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Sambal telur – Egg coated in spicy tomato paste

1 large onions, cut in rings
2 cardammon pods
2 ripe tomatoes,deseeded and diced
2 tbs sugar (or to tasteI
1 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup tamarind water (from 1 tsp tamarind paste, sieve out seeds)
handful of coriander

6-8 hard boiled eggs
oil to deep-fry

spice paste
1 inch prawn paste – toasted or use the paste-form
3 lemongrass, use only the white section
2 inch ginger
5 shallots
2 clove garlic
4 dried chillies – deseed and soaked in hot water

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1) Boil the eggs.

2) Chop & blitz all the paste ingredients in a food processor, adding a little oil to make it smoother

3) Peel the boiled eggs, and prick it all around with a fork. This is so the eggs do not crack or spit whilst deep frying. Heat oil up, and when it starts to develop a haze, drop the eggs in gently. Let it fry until golden brown. I sometimes skip the deep frying part, but the deep frying definately adds to the texture of the dish.

4) Meanwhile, toast the cardammon pods in a dry pan. Once the flavors starts to release, put in 1 tsp of oil, and sautee the onions. When the onions are soft and transparent, pour in the spice paste, and sautee until fragant. Add in all the other ingredients except the coriander, and simmer until it is pretty thick.

5) Taste the sauce, ensuring that it is sweet/salty/spicy enough. This is not supposed to be a fiery dish, more of a sweet,tart, slightly spicy and fresh flavour. Once the sauce is seasoned to taste, add in the fried eggs and completely coat the eggs with the sauce. Serve with nasi lemak or white rice, with a generous garnish of chopped coriander. You can do without, but I love my coriander .

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For me, Rendang is the curry that defines Malaysian food. Admittedly, it came from the Minangkabaus who migrated to Malaysia from Sumatra, it is now so widely recognised across the country that most people can probably not imagined life without it. Slowly simmered for hours to achieve the tender melt in the mouth texture, this is not for the faint hearted or impatient cook. It is also not something that is eaten on a day to day basis by the Minangkabaus, rather, it was reserved for celebrations or special occassions due to the long cooking time.

When I lived in Malaysia, I would have rendang at least once a week. Nasi Lemak (see my recipe here ) topped with a fried egg, sliced cucumber and rendang. I buy it on my way to work, get my parents to buy it for me, order it after a rough night out, have it for lunch – the list goes on. If nasi lemak is the go-to food for Malaysians, the rendang is the sauce that goes with it.

And now that I live here, I only get to have rendang on the occassions when bacon heads to Birmingham for work. It is usually drowning in oil, but beggars cannot be choosers….definately one of the worst rendang I’ve ever had, but I still ate it. When he was last down in Birmingham last week, he wanted to get rendang again, but I stopped him as I cannot stomach the more oil than meat ratio. He loves rendang and nasi lemak almost as much as me, so I promised him that I will make him some rendang as he was pouting at me for cutting short his rendang dreams.

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Beef Rendang
adapted from the ever-wonderful Rasa Malaysia

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2lbs stewing steak, cubed
1 tin coconut cream
1 cup tamarind water (from 2 tbs tamarind paste, sieve out seeds)
3 tbs palm sugar
100g kerisik (toasted dessicated coconut)
5 dried kaffir lime leaves
2 stalks lemongrass – crushed
cooking oil

dry-toast
6 star anise
3 cloves
8 cardammon pods
1 cinnamon stick (6 inch)

paste
5 stalks of lemongrass
8 shallots
3 inch ginger
5 cloves garlic
3 inch galangal
1 inch fresh tumeric (1 tsp powdered)
20 dried chillies, deseeded & soaked in hot water

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1) Chop the inggredients for the paste, and blend it in the food processor with 2tsp of oil.

2) Dry-toast the spices in a pan until it is fragant. Remove the spices, and place it into a heavy stewing pot. Using the same pan, toast some dessicated coconut, making sure to turn and toss often until it is a even nutty brown color.

3) In the stewing pot, heat up the toasted spices with 3 tsp of oil. Stir in spice paste, and sautee until fragant. Place beef in the pot, and brown evenly. Mix in the braised lemongrass, and cook for a further 5 minutes.

4) Once the beef and lemongrass is completely coated with the spice paste and starts to smell wonderful, pour in the rest of the ingredients. This would cover the beef and look something like a thin curry.

5) Now comes the hard part – let it simmer on low heat for 2-3 hours. The house would be premeated with the wonderful smells of from that boiling pot, but you MUST refrain from eating it! It is ready when it is nearly dry, the spice paste coating the beef pieces which should be melt-in-the-mouth.

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Serve up with a wamn serving of nasi lemak (or steamed white rice) immediately, and save the rest for the next day. The flavours only intensifies with age, and at this stage the beef is almost ‘preserved’ with the spices. It is thought that rendang was also a way to preserve beef back before refridgeration was available. I stored most of it in batches in my freezer, but it is supposed to keep without freezing for at least a week.

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Growing up in a typical Chinese family, dinners were always dishes with steamed white rice – eaten family styled. This is probably the norm for about 99% of the time. Even when we ate out as a family it was usually rice and dishes. When we would have hawker (or more precisely, street food) food for dinner, it would be something typically Malaysian Chinese consisting of noodles or another rice dish.

As a child, it was a treat to have anything that is out of the ‘Chinese food’ classification. I was regularly treated to KFC & McDonalds and the such; but what I loved most was the cheaper (and local) version of ‘Western food’. For the longest time I was under the impression that people who live in ‘western’ countries live on a diet of steaks, chicken chops, fish & chips, chicken maryland and ‘hawaiian fried rice’ . I think most people that grew up in Malaysia pre-90s did. It was a while before I realised that chicken maryland & chicken chop does not exactly exist anywhere else other than in Malaysia, and calling butter,pineapple & ham fried rice ‘Hawaiian’ is probably the ultimate insult to any self-respecting islander. Fish & chips made with crinkle cut fries and panko is totally different from the original english version that they shouldn’t even be called the same name .

One of my personal favourite is the chicken chop. A piece of panfried/deep fried boneless chicken thigh & leg smothered in a Hainanese-styled sauce served with peas and chips/wedges. Chinese of Hainanese descent were very popular hire as chefs and cooks back in the colonial days. They would pick up on the tastes of their employers and create their version of ‘western’ dishes. This includes the super delicious sauce seasoned with foreign ingredients like ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, mixed in with oyster sauce and soy sauce. Proper fusion back in 1920s . So nothing about it is typical, rather, it is more of a chinese intrepretation of what they think the British ate

The initial idea came from a friend, but as I did not have some of the ingredients, I basically butchered and chopped the recipe to suit my needs. And you know what? It is the most AMAZING chicken chop I have ever had in my life. Hands down.

Recipe for Hailam Chicken Chop

to marinade:
2 chicken dark meat segments – deboned
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tbs soya sauce (I used regular Kikkoman)
black pepper

- Pound the chicken to tenderise it ( I did not actually do this)
- Prick the chicken with a fork, and marinade it with the rest of the ingredients for a good couple of hours. I left mine overnight for maximum flavour penetration.

to fry:
1 egg, beaten
cornflour & pepper, to dredge

- Remove the chicken from the marinade, drip dry.
- Coat it in the beaten egg, and then dredge it the cornflour
- You can leave the cornflour out, or replace it with breadcrumbs. I just felt like a fried cornflour day
- Shallow panfry the chicken, skin-down. You can deep fry it if you like, but I am trying to cut down on my fried chicken consumption -I eat way too much fried chicken.
- After frying 5 minutes on each side, pop it on a baking tray skin-side up.
- This is going into the oven at 180C for the 30 mins it takes to cook the wedges

to make the wedges:
3 waxy potatoes, cut into wedges
salt + pepper
2 tbs olive oil
herbs,chilli and other seasonings.

- Mix it all up on a baking tray.
-Goes in the oven with the chicken for 30 minutes 180C

to make the sauce:
1 onion, cut into rings
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 stalk celery, diced (just because I had some in my fridge)
100g sliced button mushrooms (because I had some)
leftover marinade
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 tbs Oyster sauce
1 tbs soy sauce
2 tbs ketchup
a splash of vineger
water

- Sautee garlic with butter, and brown onion rings.
- Add mushrooms & celery, and sautee until soft and lightly browned.
- Add seasonings, making sure to keep tasting and adjusting to taste.
- When you’re happy with the flavours, thin out with a little water combined with corn flour to thicken it. I did not actually do this as I had used the leftover beaten egg & cornflour from the chicken.

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At this point, the chicken and wedges should be done and ready, but make sure to test it by poking a fork through the thickest part of the chicken and ensuring no blood comes up to the surface.
Serve up with some peas and carrots seasoned with butter and pepper.

The frying-baking of the chicken turned the chicken skin ultra-crispy, whilst the day-long marination process ensured a juicy and well-seasoned chicken. I would have happily munched on the chicken just by itself, but the wonderful fusion sauce beautifully complemented the chicken. I scooped up the remainder of the sauce with the wedges, which crisped up in the oven and was just right. Two thumbs up, if I may say so myself!!

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