Have you ordered a bucket of fried chicken, ate a lot for a meal, and still have plenty left over, but don’t want to go back to dinner?
So you make easy and foolproof chicken rice with it!
I stumbled upon this Japanese trick recipe and had to try it. The brilliant hack recipe has just four ingredients: fried chicken, rice, chicken broth, and light soy sauce. I added a little more to mine for a little more flavor.
For more flavor, I added sesame oil, black pepper and chopped garlic and ginger. The resulting taste tasted close to Hainan chicken rice, which is a favorite in my books.
I used broth from a bucket of chicken broth, which has salt. Therefore, I was very stingy with my light soy sauce. If you use unsalted chicken broth, add more light soy sauce to season.
What type and part
of fried chicken to use?
The original recipe uses fried chicken from KFC, but any fried chicken will do. I’ve done variations of this with Popeye’s fried chicken. The idea is that fried chicken flavors rice. The Japanese recipe uses the “original” flavor, but I used the “hot and crunchy” flavor, because that’s my favorite.
I have tried this recipe three times, with different parts of the chicken. I am happy to report that this worked very well with the thigh and chest portion. I expected the breast portion to dry, but in fact the chicken broth hydrated it a little evenly. The thighs are tastier, but that might be my personal preference.
Unlike the hack recipe, I removed the skin from my chicken pieces… because I want that crispy skin for myself! I wasn’t sure why no recipe removed the crunchy skin first, but I guess it’s because the skin contains most of the flavors and spices. I removed the skin from my chicken and actually enjoyed it much more: my rice in general was much less salty. In addition, I have the advantage of crispy chicken skin. I took the extra trouble, which is not too much anyway, to crunch the chicken skin in the oven at 200 degrees C for 10 minutes.
Which rice cooker to use?
I used a Japanese rice cooker
, but any rice cooker will do. There is no difference in the ratio of rice to water if you did it without the chicken.
My rice cooker came with a steaming vent, so I was also able to cook vegetables along with the rice. Having some steamed vegetables makes this meal a little less guilty :p.
What kind of rice to use? How to cook Japanese rice?
I used Japanese rice in all my attempts, but there’s no reason why this wouldn’t work with any rice I have available at home. Take note of the water ratios for different types of rice. Some rice cookers have indicator lines for the amount of water needed, you can simply follow this.
For Japanese rice, the ratio is 1:1.2. That is, 20% more water than rice. For my cup of rice cooker 1, which is 180 ml, you should be given 200 ml of water.
Regular white rice requires a ratio of 1:1, for the sake of comparison
.
It is best to soak Japanese rice in water first for about 30 minutes before cooking. Wash the rice under running water until the water is not cloudy. Then drain the water as much as possible and add this to the rice cooker (I only wash and drain the rice in the same rice cooker for convenience). Add the chicken broth, turn it into the rice and put it in the rice cooker. Simply let it sit for about 30 minutes, before pressing the ‘cook’ button. I find that if I skip the soaking portion, then some of the rice pieces don’t cook.
More recipes
like this: If you like
this rice cooker recipe, you might also like:
- Rainbow Fried
- Chinese Glutinous Rice ‘Lo Ma Gai’Arrocera
- Mac and Cheese
- Rice Cooker Cheesecake
Rice Cooker
