Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

Serving:  for 2-4 persons

Pak Cham Kee or poached chicken with garlic and ginger is a Sunday staple in my house because my father loves it very much. Our family refuses to eat this dish outside because my mother’s recipe, handed down from her mother, yields tender pieces of chicken that brings out the succulence not normally associated with tough but flavourful ayam kampong (free-range chicken).

This dish relies a lot on the fragrance from ginger and garlic. The flavour is provided solely by the sauce. Textures are also important: chicken should be done yet juicy. Leftover chicken stock can be used for hainanese chicken rice, chicken soup or other dishes.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken (I like to use coquelet or spring chicken)
3 cm ginger, smashed
2 cloves garlic, smashed
Water for poaching (just enough to cover the chicken)
Salt to taste

Optional:
2-3 shitake mushroom, rinsed briefly with water

The sauce:
3 cloves of garlic, finely minced
1 cm of ginger, finely minced
Oil for frying (about 4-5 tbsp)
Soy sauce, sesame oil, fish sauce, Shaoxing wine, to taste

The sauce should taste salty and rich and slightly oily with garlic fragrance

The chili sauce:
10 bird-eye chilies
1 clove garlic
A piece of ginger (about 1 cm)
Salt to taste
1 tbsp of chicken stock

Directions:
Dump the crushed ginger, garlic, Shitake (if using) and chicken into a pot. Cover with water and season with a little salt. Bring to a vigorous boil and switch off the fire. Let the chicken be in this very hot water for about 2 hours.

Meanwhile, fry the minced garlic and ginger in oil very gently at low heat. Do not let the garlic brown. To extract all flavour, it often takes me about 15 minutes of gentle simmering. When sufficiently done, switch off the fire and pour the rest of the flavourings in the warm pot. Stir to mix and set aside.

I assume you cook steamed rice with this in your rice cooker. When the rice is cooked but still steaming, quickly open the rice-cooker cover and dump the chilies onto the rice. Let it be steamed until the chilies are soft.

When soft, take them out and mash them with a little salt in a mortar and pestle (use food processor only if you double or triple the recipe as the small quantity equals to ineffective processing). Then add the ginger and mash well. Lastly, repeat the same mashing with garlic.

Thin the chili sauce with a tablespoon of stock and correct the seasoning. Set aside in a little bowl.

To serve, chop the chicken into smaller pieces, Chinese style, and place the pieces on a serving plate. Either pour the sauce all over the chicken or put it in small individual serving bowls for dipping. Serve with the chili sauce and steamed rice.