Mainland Southeast Asia · Volume 61, The Dry Bowl, the Ash Noodle and the Jar Drunk Through a Reed
Cơm gà Hội An
Hội An
Illustration
- Researched
- Researched from 50 sources in the brief
The old town's chicken rice, from five named vendors and no named founder. The rice is old, aged at least a year on the one page that says, and soaked in turmeric overnight; the hen is free range and poached precisely and taken out quickly; the broth is coloured with turmeric and gấc.
As tradition built it
Serves a family. The rice is soaked the night before.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- 1kg old crop rice
- 1 free range hen or young laying hen, 1.2 to 1.5kg
- chicken fat
- 1 onion, sliced thin
- for garnish fried shallots
- for garnish rau răm, Vietnamese coriander
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
- 1 lime
- green papaya, pickled
- to serve Trà Quế herbs
- to serve mint
- 100g chilli garlic sauce
- 2 tsp turmeric, for the soak and the broth's colour
- gấc, for the broth's colour
Method
- The night before, soak the old crop rice in water with some of the turmeric.
- Poach the hen in salted water just until done, lift it out at once and cool it; keep the broth and skim the fat.
- Cook the drained rice in the broth, coloured with the turmeric and gấc, with the chicken fat, so the fat melts into it as it finishes.
- Shred the chicken by hand and dress it with the onion, fried shallot, rau răm, salt, pepper and lime.
- Serve the yellow rice with the chicken over it, the pickled papaya, the herbs, the chilli garlic sauce and a bowl of the broth.
What a modern chef changes
The poach by temperature, the rice by the fat
Rung 1
Method
- Poach the hen at 80 degrees, held, until the thigh reads 70 at the bone, then into iced water; the skin sets taut and the flesh stays juicy, which is what "taken out quickly" is for.
- Render the skin and fat from the back and neck and cook the rice in broth with that fat and a little turmeric, in the pot and not the rice cooker, so the bottom crisps.
- Dress the chicken while it is still warm so the onion softens and the rau răm perfumes it.
- Pickle the papaya in rice vinegar with a little sugar and salt two hours ahead; it is the acid the plate needs.