Friday Feels: In Praise of Chindo Comfort Foods
How Hainan chicken and rice became my go-to dish to nourish my community
Welcome! If you’re a new subscriber and came through my Menopause Mondays post, this is Friday Feels! A column dedicated to all the other parts of a woman’s identity from the viewpoint of an Asian Mom. My next piece on menopause will be in your inbox after the weekend :-)
In Design Mom, which is essential reading for developing your family’s personal style and aesthetics, blogger and essayist Gabrielle Stanley Blair advises turning your regularly-scheduled activities into family traditions. Specifically, she suggests “Creating a Movie Party Tradition.” What that means is choosing a day of the week for family movie night, and then creating little customs around that activity. Her family puts on their pajamas and they munch on Swedish Fish (their movie candy of choice) and flavored popcorn that’s reserved ONLY for movie night.
Since reading Design Mom, and succeeding with creating our own movie night tradition, I’ve been applying Blair’s advice to the parts of our life that otherwise feel hectic or exhausting to execute. I’m learning that having traditions eases up on the mental load because you’re spending less time thinking and planning, and more time enjoying the moment.
Reclaiming my time has made me more thoughtful in my approach to tradition-making, which I see as the opportunity to connect with and celebrate our family’s cultural heritage. Recently, this has meant making Hainan chicken and rice for our loved ones.
Nourishing my community was on my mind when the family we carpool with moved houses mid-year. To help ease their stress, I offered to drop off dinner which is how my new tradition of making Hainan chicken & rice for the people in our life came about.
Hainan chicken & rice is a popular dish among the Chinese diaspora. Huaren in Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia all have their version. There is even a longstanding debate among huaren about which Southeast Asian country created the dish, particularly between Singapore and Malaysia who both claim Hainan chicken and rice as a heritage dish. Singapore has even obtained a spot on UNESCO’s list of intangible heritage cultures for Hainan chicken and rice.
There’s more to Hainan chicken and rice than the recipe itself. This food is history and ancestry on a fork. At its core is the story of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia, which spans centuries and endured waves of colonialism and in some countries like Indonesia, forced assimilation. The dish is a reminder of perseverance and the ways in which our ancestors evolved and adapted their cultures in their new environments. Making Hainan chicken and rice fills me with pride. The chicken was first domesticated in Southeast Asia which is pretty wild.
I’ve been eating Hainan chicken and rice my whole life. My earliest memories of the dish are from afternoons when my mom and Jiyi took my cousins and me to the only Malaysian restaurant in Rowland Heights, a small city in eastern Los Angeles County that became home to many first generation Asian American families in the 1990s. We ate there because Malaysian food is kind of like Indonesian food, and there wasn’t an Indonesian restaurant (much less a Chinese Indonesian restaurant) nearby. I write a bit about Chinese Indonesian history here if you are interested in learning why.
Unlike the other Chinese and Chinese American restaurants in the area where food was served “family style” and customers were given chopsticks unless they asked for forks, this restaurant served Hainan chicken and rice on individual plates and with forks unless we asked for chopsticks. Colonization has also affected utensil use.
One of the reasons I like making Hainan chicken and rice now is that it comes together quickly, can be made in large quantities, and easily reheated. I’m including my recipe below, but essentially you’re poaching chicken and then making rice with the stock you just poached your chicken in. Then you’re steaming broccoli on top of your rice when it’s almost cooked. It’s the perfect one-pot meal.
HAINAN CHICKEN & RICE RECIPE
Ingredients
chicken thighs
chicken or vegetable stock (1 box per 2lbs of chicken
white pepper to taste
ginger, sliced
1 shallot, minced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
green onion
cilantro
dry jasmin or other white rice
broccoli
soy sauce (4tbsp)
rice wine vinegar (2tsp)
sriracha (optional)
Instructions
Put your chicken thighs, white pepper, sliced ginger, minced shallots and garlic in a pot and pour the stock over it. Bring your stock to a rolling boil, then lower your heat to low so the stock comes to a simmer. Poach your chicken until cooked, about 30-40 minutes.
Remove your chicken. Measure your water and replace in pot with rice in the correct ratio to cook your rice.
While your rice cooks, slice your broccoli. When your rice is nearly cooked, add your broccoli to the top of your pot to steam. While steaming, slice your chicken. Then in a separate dish, mix your soy sauce and rice wine vinegar together and set aside. Mince your green onion and your cilantro and put them in separate dishes.
When your rice is cooked, remove your broccoli and set in a separate dish. Add your chicken back to your pot and mix it into your rice.
To serve: place your Hainan chicken and rice in a bowl, then top with a little sauce, sriracha (optional), green onion, and cilantro. Place a few pieces of steamed broccoli on the side of the bowl as an edible garnish. Enjoy!
Please let me know if you try my recipe or if you like making Hainan chicken and rice and have your own recipe or tips to tweak or improve mine!
Read Design Mom
I am the Asian Mom
Julie Leung’s The Truth About Dragons Holds a Powerful Message for Bicultural Families