One-pot Hokkien Chicken Rice

Everybody knows Hainan Chicken Rice. Some of you may have tasted this dish. Many of you also knew and tasted the Claypot Chicken Rice. How many people have tasted the Hokkien one-pot chicken rice? What is that?


This is another value for money one-pot meal handed down by my "Ah Mah".

People says that the world is not fair. Yes, I agreed totally. Human being does not treat another human being equally. Human being also does treat their domesticated animals equally. There is always discriminated by colour, gender, look, size etc.

My grand-parents reared chicken, ducks and pigs. There was obvious discrimination in rearing the chicken.

Hens were preferred over the cockerels. If there were too many matured cockerels, they would fight for control over the hens. Moreover, the hens lay eggs. So for economic reasons, the number of cockerels in the farm was kept to only two for reproduction purposes.

What did they do with the excess cockerels? Some of these young cockerels were slaugthered (the unfortunate ones) for the Hokkien Chicken Rice. The rest were castrated by a "Chicken Doctor", and reared as prized cockerel, eunuch chicken ( Cantonese called this "Yim Kai", Hokkien called this "Ieam Kwuei") until full size. The "Yim Khai" meats were succulent and tasty and had good texture. These eunuch cockerels were mainly sold during the Chinese New Year festive seasons for the big feast.

Not many of the cockerels were lucky to live up to maturity like this one.

But this one has a tough job though, you know. Once the performane was under-rated, it became "Ayam pencen" (retired cock) and would end up in curry chicken pot. Who says life is easy for animals?


Observing the "Chicken Doctor" performing the castration was interesting. He skillfully removed the testicles from the cockerels near the anus, without making a major incision. He sterilized his equipment with hot water and wiped with alcohol. After he had stitched the incision, he applied some dark cream ( presumbly antiseptic) and the castrated cockerel was up and running.

So you see, the farmer discrimated the cockerel and prefered the hens. Otherwise, where on earth do you get all the eggs in the market?

The one-pot chicken rice is comparable to the claypot chicken rice. The difference lies in the way of cooking.

For claypot chicken rice, the rice is cooked first. When the rice started boiling in the claypot, the marinated chicken, Chinese sausage, pre-mixed sauce, (optional salted fish) and rice wine are added in and cooked further until ready to eat.

To cook the Hokkien one-pot chicken rice, all the ingredients and the rice are dumped into the cooking pot at one go and cooked until ready for eating. I loved to eat my grandma's chicken rice but sometimes a small fragment of chicken bone in the rice would hurt me when it get stucked in between my teeth or cut my tongue and gum.

I have therefore modified my grandma's recipe. I used chicken fillets only instead of chicken with bones. I also fried the ingredients in the wok first, to get better aroma and fragrance. Then transfer into the pot with raw rice for cooking. I also substituted oyster sauce for the thick black soy sauce. The end result is a hybrid of hainanese chicken and claypot chicken rice. Looks like Hainan chicken rice, golden yellowish colour, with small cubes of chicken fillets. Wow!!! Easy to cook, nice to eat.

I always cook for my family of five. So, I used the recipe for 5 persons as the benchmark.

The ingredients to cook this one-pot chicken rice are:-

3 piece of shallot

6 cloves of white garlic

1 piece of ginger (one portion cut into stripe and one portion minced into paste= two table spoon of paste).

250 gms of chicken fillet

1 piece of Chinese sausage(optional)

2 teaspoon of oyster sauce.

1 teaspoon of sesame oil.

2 tablespoon of cooking oil.

3 tea cups of rice.

1 teaspoon of salt.

First, fry the ginger, garlic and shallot with the cooking oil. Once they turn golden brown in colour, add in the chicken fillet and Chinese sausage. Fry further until the fragrance and the strong aroma of chicken and sausage emitting. Add in the oyster sauce and sesame oil, stir further to ensure a thorough mix. Transfer the whole lot into a rice cooker and cook with rice and appropriate amount of water.

15 minutes later, you can smell the strong aroma of chicken rice emitting from the rice cooker's vent. The one-pot chicken rice takes about 25 minutes to cook perfectly.

Sprinkle some white pepper powder on the cooked rice.

You have this wholesome, yummy and value-for-money home cooked chicken rice that is nice to eat. If you like, you may add slices of cucumber, tomato and some sambal or cut chillies.