London-based, Singapore-born-and-raised cook and food writer Shu Han Lee’s new cookbook, Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes From Singapore, captures the essence of Singapore – and that’s before you even get to the recipes. Its colourful pages are littered with illustrations and photos of Singapore’s famously flavourful food and intimate happy snaps, bringing to life the frenetic joy of the city and its many culinary influences.
“Agak” loosely translates as “somewhat” from Malay, and nods to the intuition learned over a lifetime of cooking Singaporean food perfectly without recipes or measurements. Han Lee aims for the book to lay the foundations for home cooks to build their own recipes and flavour profiles, via recipes for Singaporean classics, traditional family dishes and modern favourites. The celebration of the country’s cuisine includes recipes for kaya toast with half-boiled eggs, sambal, perfect coconut rice, ox-cheek rendang and this Hainanese chicken rice, a firm favourite that’s way more than the sum of its parts.
“This is a dish brought over by the Hainanese immigrants and looks deceptively plain: poached chicken, served with rice cooked in the chicken broth and fat,” writes Han Lee. “But done right, it’s a masterful lesson in drawing flavours out of basic ingredients and carrying them through all the elements on a plate.
“The Singaporean twist to the original Hainan dish is the addition of pandan leaves or lemongrass for extra fragrance, as well as a punchy chilli sauce. This used to be a dish I would reserve for weekends, as the traditional method of poaching a whole chicken requires a fair bit more time – and more friends to feed! Using chicken thighs means I can do this in half the time, with all the flavour for a midweek treat. Get the best chicken you can afford – corn-fed/free-range/organic – as it’s such a simple dish, you want your few key ingredients to really shine.”
Though this dish isn’t overly tricky, it’s a good idea to read it over a couple of times to ensure you are reserving the correct amounts of chicken fat and stock for condiments and serving.
Shu Han Lee’s Hainanese chicken rice
Serves 2–3
Preparation time: 45 minutes, plus 15 minutes resting
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients
4 chicken thighs (about 600g), skin on and bone in
Coarse sea salt, for rubbing
About 750ml water
1 garlic bulb, smashed
2 thumb-sized pieces (30g) fresh ginger, peeled and smashed
2 pandan leaves, knotted, or 2 lemongrass stalks, lightly bashed
2 spring onions, chopped
150g jasmine rice, rinsed and drained
2 tbsp light soy sauce
¼ tsp fine sea salt, or to taste
2 tsp sesame oil
Thick dark soy sauce or kecap manis, to serve
Ground white pepper, to taste
½ cucumber, sliced
Small handful fresh coriander
Ginger-garlic sauce
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 tbsp grated garlic
½ tsp light brown sugar
¼ tsp fine sea salt, or to taste
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chicken stock from poaching chicken
Garlic-chilli sauce
8 large (200g) fresh red chillies, chopped (deseeded if you want it milder)
5 garlic cloves, peeled
Thumb-sized piece (15g) fresh ginger, peeled
1 tbsp sea salt, or to taste
1 tbsp light brown sugar, or to taste
4 tbsp white rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar
Method
Prepare the chicken by trimming any visible fat – set it aside for later. Rub the chicken all over with generous pinches of coarse sea salt. Place the chicken in a large pot, wide enough to fit the thighs in a single layer. Pour in just enough of the water to submerge the chicken, but you might need a bit more or less depending on the size of your pot. Add half the garlic, ginger, pandan or lemongrass and spring onions to the pot and bring to a rolling boil, then turn the heat down to a bare simmer. Cook for 10 minutes, skimming off any scum. Turn the heat off and let the chicken sit in the hot water, covered, for another 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, render the chicken fat by cooking over moderate heat in a pan. Discard the solids. Once the chicken is cooked, remove and place straight into a large bowl of iced water. This will give it a nice springy texture. You also now have a pot of flavourful stock from poaching the chicken!
Combine the rice with 250ml of the chicken stock, the rendered chicken fat, sesame oil, the remaining ginger, garlic, pandan and spring onion. Season with the fine sea salt. Cook in the rice cooker or on the stovetop, before fluffing and serving.
While the rice is cooking, get all the other bits ready to serve.
To make the garlic-chilli sauce, pound all the ingredients together using a pestle and mortar or whizz in a small blender until you get a fine paste. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Store any leftovers in a clean jar in the fridge. It will keep for up to a week if you take care not to double dip.
Make the ginger-garlic sauce by combining the ginger, garlic, sugar and salt in a small heatproof bowl. Heat the oils in a small pan and pour over the mixture, then stir in the chicken stock.
De-bone and slice the chicken, then drizzle with the remaining teaspoon of sesame oil and soy sauce. Get your ginger-garlic sauce, garlic-chilli sauce and dark soy sauce or kecap manis ready in little saucers. Warm up the chicken broth and season with salt and white pepper, to taste.
To serve, arrange the cut chicken and cucumbers over the warm rice, alongside your various sauces and little bowls of chicken broth. Garnish with the fresh coriander.
This is an edited extract from Agak Agak: Everyday Recipes from Singapore by Shu Han Lee, published by Hardie Grant Books. Available in stores nationally from July 4, 2024. Photography by Ola O. Smit.
