Would you pay $30 for a chicken?
Normally I wouldn’t, not even for a live layer hen, let alone an eating bird, but in this case, I made an exception. My friend Ella Dee recently ordered a Burrawong Gaian chook, grown by the lovely Beth McMillan whom I chat with occasionally on Twitter.
ED’s post sent me to Beth’s website, where I was happy to discover that her products are available in the Inner West. A visit to George at Dulwich Hill Gourmet Meats netted us a magnificent organic and free range 1.9kg bird. The first thing I noticed was the colour – Beth’s chooks are both pasture and corn fed, resulting in a rosy bird tinged with gold. Quite different to the white free range chickens we normally buy…
As you’d expect, there was quite a lot of discussion on how to prepare this bird, with both Pete and George adamant that roasting wouldn’t do it justice. We finally decided to gently poach it, and to use the fat and stock to make Hainanese Chicken Rice.
I’ve been making this dish for years, and have resisted posting my recipe in the past because it’s neither authentic nor consistent. Nevertheless, here’s a rough outline of how we make it at our place…
Step 1: Poach the chicken
I cook my chicken following a technique from Terry Durack’s Yum (for those who have been reading for a while, it’s the same method we use for our Simple Chicken Soup recipe).
Chicken and Stock:
- 1 large free range chicken
- 2 slices ginger
- 2 spring onions, coarsely chopped
- 1 tablespoon fine sea salt
- a mix of vegetable oil, sesame oil and fine salt, for brushing
1. Wash the chicken, removing any loose fat and setting it aside for later. Place the bird, breast up, in a stock pot “just large enough to hold it snugly”, as per Mr Durack instructions. Add enough cold water to just cover.
2. Add the ginger, spring onions and salt and bring to a boil. Simmer for five minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook for a further five minutes. Now cover the pot, turn off the heat, and allow the chicken to continue steeping for 40 minutes. Check the chicken by inserting a skewer through the thickest part of the thigh – if the juices run clear without any hint of pink, then the chicken is cooked.
3. Remove the chicken from the stock and sit it on a rimmed plate (to catch the juices). Brush over the oil mixture, and allow to rest.
Step 2: Preparing the Rice
- long grain rice, washed and drained
- vegetable oil
- reserved chicken fat
- 2 – 3 garlic cloves
- stock from poaching the chicken (see above)
- fine sea salt, to taste
1. Add a little vegetable oil to a wok, and then add the reserved chicken fat, and cook over a medium heat until rendered and crisp. Add the sliced garlic cloves and fry until lightly brown…
2. Add the rice and fry over a medium heat until well coated with the oil and fat…
3. Scrape it all into your rice cooker (we use the microwave) and add the appropriate quantity of stock. Here’s my mother’s tip: taste the stock after you’ve added it to the rice, and add a little bit more salt if needed – you want it to be just slightly too salty to drink as a broth. Cook your rice by the absorption method until fluffy.
Step 3: Plating Up
1. With a sharp knife or scissors, cut the chicken into serving sized pieces. I can never manage with a cleaver, so my pieces are usually quite large – I remove the thighs, wings and drumsticks, then hack the remainder up as best I can. If you’ve never done this before, a pair of kitchen scissors makes the job easy.
2. We make a simple sauce to accompany this dish by blitzing a few cloves of garlic, some peeled ginger and a couple of spring onions in a small food processor, and then cooking the mixture briefly in a little vegetable oil. Season with salt to taste.
3. Serve the rice with the chicken, ginger sauce and soy. Enjoy!
So…would I buy a $30 chicken again?
Not on a weekly basis, but for a regular once a month treat, definitely. This was, hands down, the best chicken rice we’ve ever made. The minute I tasted the poaching stock, I knew the dish was going to be a hit. I was so happy to have five containers’ worth leftover for the freezer…
Beth’s chicken was very special – the meat was tender and richly flavoured, and the rice was aromatic and delicious. Big Boy wasn’t home that night, but Small Man declared it to be the best he’d ever tasted, and asked if we could save some for dinner the following night. Definitely a big hit!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
No, I admit that I’d not pay that much for a chicken … as gorgeous and healthy as it is. Shame on me, I know. But guess what? We both cook chickens the same way when roasting isn’t required!! I learned that method when we lived in HK, and I’ve never gone back to another method since. :)
Misky, that’s cool, I only learnt this poaching method a few years ago, but it produces the most tender “white-cut” chicken ever! Hong Kong must have been great fun! :)
Those years were some of the best in my life. Peder says the same. We miss it like crazy.
Looks wonderful Celia. I’m generally very frugal (some may say tight!) with food swapping, eking out bought produce with home-grown veggies, but I splash out once a month on the best chicken we can afford/get round here and it’s so worth it – not only am I happy that the chicken has been reared well, we enjoy so much flavour in leftover meals, stock, risotto etc.
Andrea, that’s a good philosophy to shop by – I’ve always maintained that frugal isn’t about buying the cheapest things we can find, but rather about making conscious choices on how and where we spend our money…
Oh, this chicken would make a fabulous bastilla. I’ve been slightly obsessed by bastilla for the past month, but it needs really flavourful chicken or other game poultry.
Saucy, Beth’s chooks are available at a few places in Sydney now! I think it’s worth the money for a special dish!
I’ll happily pay more for a top quality chicken and I don’t think roasting is a waste at all. We always make stock from the carcass (bones, cartilage, leftover skin) as well. All the leftover meat is stripped first (and I’m thorough) so we get a number of meals out of it – risotto (using meat and stock), chicken salad, croquettes…
Kavey, it wasn’t that they thought roasting would be a waste, but rather that it wouldn’t do the chicken justice – I wasn’t convinced, but I’m easily swayed to cooking chicken rice in almost any situation.. :)
The saying “you get what you pay for” comes to mind. It sounds like you got a lot of goodness out of that chicken. With such wonderful broth in the freeze, it appears that chicken has more to give. :)
Karen, the poaching stock was just so tasty, it’s such a treat to have it in the freezer!
We once bought a 25 buck chicken, that was about 8 years ago, so it was probably more expensive than yours. We wanted to support a woman who was selling lamb and beef raised in her farm, and then flirted with the idea of selling chickens. She charged that much because of the work she had to do herself to pluck the chicken, which apparently is very very hard.
In that case, the chicken was not worth the extra price, not sure if we did not use the right method to profit from it, but… we felt it was not worth it. Now we moved to Kansas, and I often wonder how she is doing. Her lamb was spectacular, we miss that…
Sally, that’s a pain when it doesn’t feel like you’ve gotten value for money. Still the lamb sounds like it was really something special!
I bet it was fantastic – we rear our own chickens for eating and they’re corn fed and free range and look like this too. The stock is amazing isn’t it?! Go glad you really did it justice with such a lovely dish.
Chica, it must be wonderful to have your own birds, especially if they taste as good as this one did! :)
It’s funny how we get all hot and bothered over the price of a chicken when we would pay more than that for a meal for 2 in a restaurant ~ let alone for 4 and left overs AND the stock!
In GBP your $30 AUD is £16.67. We’d not get a meal for 4 in a fast food joint for that!
I’m going to try your poaching technique as well. Our energy bills are skyrocketing and anything that cuts those AND gives a good result is welcome.
Thanks.
Pat, I’m not really hot and bothered, more reflective. And you’re certainly right, it made enough for dinner for six (three the first night and three the second night), plus stock, which makes it all very good value for $30! :)
It has been ages sinced I poached chicken. I think next time I will try your method. I have stopped using using stock cubes from the store and only use my own stock which I store in the freezer like you do. How wonderful that you got so much stock for future use.
Laila, it’s like having gold bars in the safe! Every time I make this recipe, we end up with excess stock, which we use regularly in other dishes. I don’t think we could use packaged stock any more!
Beautiful! Homemade stock is so much better than store-bought, and stretches the money you spent on the chicken nicely. And ginger? Ohhhhhh. Almost *nothing* is as wonderful as ginger. In almost anything. :D
Kathryn, the ginger/garlic sauce is our favourite – we get carried away and make quite a lot of it every time we cook this dish! :)
Peter would baulk at that price, Celia… but I think I would be happy to pay that knowing the quality of the birds and the life they will have led on Beth’s farm. Love your recipe here… been wanting to make this for ages.
Thanks love, I hope you enjoy it. It’s possibly my favourite dish ever… :)
I wouldn’t be able to pay that sort of price for meat seven days a week but like you say, as an occasional treat, yes, I’ll pay that price. That chicken is a very good size and a great colour. I’ve made hainanese chicken before but I didn’t taste the stock to check it was salty enough – I’ll give this recipe another go. It really looks fantastic and yes, this is much better use of quality bird than simply roasting it xx
Thanks Charlie, it was so special that it really felt like a treat – no-one at the table thought of it as “just chicken”! :)
This is one of my favorite dishes ever! I always feel like I have something up my sleeve when there’s good stock in the freezer, don’t you?
Siobhan, it’s like hidden treasure! We keep chicken, beef and a little bit of prawn stock these days. I’m thinking of boiling up the turkey bones and seeing what I end up with! :)
I love turkey stock. We always make congee with the turkey bones from our thanksgiving dinners – I popped mine in the freezer, ready for when my mom comes .
We love this dish too Celia, but it’s just not the same with a puny, anaemic, cheap chicken. What a wonderful find with this beautiful bird! I think the price is quite justified, I would spend that much on a nice lamb roast, or some good steak for a treat. Much better choice than a bbq chook for a great family meal sweetie xox
Becca, that’s right, isn’t it, we’d spend this much on red meat without blinking. We’re used to thinking of chicken as a cheap meat, which is not necessarily a good thing! xx
That certainly looks like a splendid bird Celia and I’m impressed with your cutting it up. I never manage to cut up a chook neatly, generally leaving it a mangled mess.
Amanda, I always feel like I’ve let my Chinese ancestry down a bit when I chop up a chicken – might need to invest in a seriously heavy cleaver, but I’m too scared to really cut down hard with it!
One of my favourite dishes and I love your step-by-step easy way. With my meager purse thirty dollars amounts to nearly half a week’s food ingredients, but the bird looks ‘quality’ even on a photo and look at the amount of beautiful broth to freeze – there’s over ten dollars of goodness there! And Hainanese chicken is such a ‘purist’ dish it almost entirely depends on the raw materials!!
Eha, I’ve also made this dish with cheaper Lilydale and Bannockburn free range birds, and they’ve been perfectly good. This one was just extra special! :)
[Big Smile!!!] Uhuh!!! Have already made one substitution and love you for it :) !
I tried to comment earlier but cyberspace didn’t let me, so as far as I remember I said something like that looks just great !! and I am glad I have waited all these years for the recipe, (yes I sneaked back and looked at the chicken soup post and found my old comments much to my surprise, but you can rely on me forgetting most things I write thank goodness! ) As to would I pay 30 Australian dollars for a really good organic chicken that made me as happy as this one has made you? Yes probably once in a while if I was feeling flush :)
Yes, that’s the same with us! Maybe once a month we’re thinking, given how much the boys raved about it! :)
I can’t believe there was any left to be saved for the next night! The quality of meat really does make a difference doesn’t it? Yours looks authentic to me Celia!
Claire, I know you’ll understand this – there is almost a sense of relief when something that cost big dollars turns out to be great value for money because it’s SO good.. :)
I think this would be the way that I would cook a wonderful bird like this. Having been to Beth’s farm I know how free the animals are and it must reflect in the quality of the produce :)
Lorraine, how fabulous that you’ve visited Beth’s farm! :)
Yum! I adore Hainanese chicken rice, and what a gorgeous bird you used to make it!
Mary, thank you! It really was a beautiful bird! Are you doing an IMK post this month? Please drop me a comment here when you do and I’ll add it to the list! (And please upload it by the 10th!) Thanks.. :)
Sounds as if the expense was so worth it. We pay R30 for a free range bird direct from the farm which in comparison is extremely cheap (no pun intended ;) )
Tandy, that’s an absolute bargain!! How great to be able to get that at such a good price!
Hainanese chicken rice is the BEST way to respect the bird. Love it.
Sharon, that is the right way to put it, thank you. Hopefully we paid due respect to this magnificent bird! :)
$30 for a chicken is a lot but if you’d tried to buy Hainanese Chicken in a restaurant for your family that was of this quality, what would you pay? and you have leftovers. I wouldn’t spend that much all the time but what a treat.
Maureen, you’re right, of course! And it really was a great treat! :)
I have always poached chicken on a very low flame – thanks for the tip on correct poaching – this bird looks wonderful!
Shashi, it takes a bit of faith the first time, but it’s an almost foolproof method! Hope you like it! :)
That one expensive bird – I think I might have had it mounted to put on the wall and admire for a while. But it surely does sound like a delicious meat. For Thanksgiving, my sister in law got a free range “happy turkey” which I have to say, the meat was a very different color and extremely tasty.
I don’t think I’ve ever poached a chicken unless you count plunking one in the crock pot with chicken broth poaching. Maybe it is the same, just a different pot if you will.
This look like a really tasty dish and thank you for the tips on rice cooking – it looks perfect.
Diane, it was expensive, but it was also good value for money, because everyone enjoyed it so much! :) I’m glad you had a fabulous turkey for Thanksgiving! x
Once upon a time chicken was a special treat. It tasted nicer too. I think it was because all chickens were free range. Your dish sounds lovely.
Thanks for stopping by! Yes, chicken used to be rare, but now it’s almost default meat. It was nice to have a reason to stop and admire it rather than just scoffing it! :)
I am glad you decided on gently poach. With a chicken of that quality, it is the only way. Was that basmati rice you used?
Shh…Norma, don’t tell my mum. I always use Basmati rice, but she thinks we should use long grain or Jasmine rice. I think it tastes better with Jasmine rice, but I think the Basmati is healthier! I wrote the recipe for long grain, so I didn’t mention that we soak the Basmati for a little while first, then drain it well…
Basmati is so fragrant, your whole house must have smelled like popcorn. Have your tried brown basmati?
We’re looking forward to our Christmas chook even more now that I’ve seen your wonderful creation… yum. Although I will have to gently roast ours. I will take the Le Chasseur and do it very slowly. As we will be on holidays I ordered a second chicken for later simple summer food and leftovers. I may get brave enough to poach it. And I will get one for Dad while we are away. $30 isn’t cheap but in perspective I have paid more than $20 for a Woolies Macro organic chicken. It’s not something we eat all the time because I hate the cheaper offerings and their provenance.I know we will get the value from it. There is much discussion and anticipation, more after your post now, about all the good things we can do with it.
ED, thanks so much for the prompt, I’d have never tracked the chook down if it wasn’t for you. Nice to know they’re available so close to home too! I’ve come to the conclusion that $30 wasn’t cheap, but it WAS good value. Does that make sense? :)
Oh yes… Cheap is often overrated, especially when it comes to food :)
The photo of the chicken brings to mind the birds that Grandpa bought at a farmers market when I was a little boy. He knew the vendors — went to a couple of their farms — and chose his chickens carefully. More than once I helped with the plucking and dressing.He never would have paid so much for a chicken but, today, I would on occasion. This method of poaching is unfamiliar to me, Celia, but the results sure do sound good. Someone mentioned “respect” for the bird and that explains this perfectly.
John, I suspect your grandfather would have had a fit at the price of this bird! But he understood quality, which is something many of us haven’t really experienced – I always buy free range chooks, but I never knew there was such a difference in them! The gentle poaching produces a very tender chicken with minimal effort. And yes, when Sharon said it was paying respect to the bird, I completely understood and agreed with her too! :)
Thought of you when our student’s garden seeds were bought today:
http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/chocolate-scented-daisy/chocolate-scented-daisy.htm
x P
How fabulous to have chocolate scented plants for your blind students, Peter!
students’ for those members of the apostrophe police force!
Celia, thanks for pointing me here. My son, seems to be coming down with manflu (!) just as he starts the Easter break which has been set aside for revision as he has big exams coming up and I was thinking about making chicken soup. This will be perfect – I can’t wait to try this poaching method. I have been buying free range or organic chickens for about 18 years – ever since I read about the breeding and growing conditions and treatments. The fact that they taste so good is a bonus! People have come to expect chicken to be cheap and regular feature on their tables when once it was a special occasion meat. I do buy a bird most weeks but I get 3 -4 meals out of it plus stock so I think it is great value for money!!
Selma, I hope your son is ok for the exams! Here’s a direct link to our chicken soup using this poaching method:
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2010/10/10/a-simple-chicken-soup/
Perfect! Thanks Celia! Jake has 3 weeks off so I am sure he will be fine by the time exams roll around…
Thank you so much for the recipes – I poached the chicken this way and it was fabulous – the broth was so clear and beautifully flavoured. I did add half a head of fresh garlic to the poaching stock as well a a little more ginger to boost the manflu fighting properties. Then when I came to make the soup, I decanted some of the broth into a smaller pan and also added a sliced parsnip as I had one to use up and chives. Jake had two bowlfuls and he really is not a soup lover at all. I put the carcass back into remaining broth and simmered that for a couple of hours for a stronger stock. Have lots of beautiful chicken left too. Thanks again Celia – will try your Hainanese Chicken next! xx
Yes, I would pay $30 for a top quality chicken that has had a good life – and make the very most of it and, as well, be happy to eat less meat at other meals. That chicken looks quite delicious. Our youngest daughter has just moved to Dulwich Hill and has told me several times about the wonderful butcher she’s found there who’s not just a butcher but a GOURMET butcher – she pronounces it in capitals:)