Chicken rice (Cơm gà)

Hello everyone! I'm back with another good recipe for you...This is an expert-ish dish that I tried simplify for you. It's called Cơm gà in Vietnamese. This is a dish that has fond with me since I was a little girl and my mom used to make it because we all love chickens ^^. It's a traditional dish that in Vietnam everybody loves to eat. In restaurant or in a small kiosk on the sidewalk, cơm gà still tastes wonderful, delicious; combines with fish sauce flavor with a small bowl of chicken soup....I hope you give this recipe a try , you won't be disappointed.

Now let's begin
Ingredients:
- 6 cups of rice
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 tsp of salt
- 2 tablespoons of oil
- 1 whole chicken (cleaned and discard the guts)
- a small chunk of carrot (about 2 inch)
- a small chunk of radish (about 2 inch)
- 1 gallon of water
- 1 tsp of yellow saffron powder

       For the fish sauce
- 2 small cloves of garlic
- 1 small chunk of peeled ginger (about 1 inch)
- 2-3 red chili
- 2-3 tablespoons of fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons of sugar
- 1 tablespoons of water
- 1 tablespoon of lime juice

Step 1: In a big pot, place the chicken in, pour the water in until it coves the chicken. Boil it about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked and no more blood coming out when you poke a chopstick in. Check around the thigh and the breast of the chicken. Occasionally, skim the foam and fat floating on top when cooking the chicken , you want a good and clear chicken stock. Also turn the chicken over every 10 minutes   so the chicken can be fully cooked.

Step 2: - put 6 cups of rice in a basket or bowl, wash them with water and drain them.
- season the rice with 2 tsp of salt
- In a big pan, drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil, drop 2 crushed clove of garlic ( no need to throw the skin out). When the oil is hot, pour the rice in and use two big wooden spatula and stir constantly. On medium high heat, fry the rice until it's become golden brown and become opaque (uncooked rice will look clear). Don't stop stirring or you will burn the rice.

Step 3: After you cook the chicken, take it out and let it cool in a bowl. Meanwhile, take a non-stick pot, pour 6 cups of chicken stock that we just cooked with the chicken. After that, add 1 tsp of the saffron powder  in and dissolve it (you don't want to add more than 2 tsp, or else the flavor will become too strong). With a help from somebody, or if you feel you are strong enough, pour all the rice from the pan into that 2nd pot. Stir the rice so it can be leveled evenly. Cover the pot with a paper towel and put a lid on to capture all the moisture. Turn the stove to very low and cook the rice about 1 hour. REMEMBER, COOK IT AT A VERY LOW TEMP, or else the rice will get burned.

Step 4: For the remaining chicken stock, slice thinly the carrot and radish. Boil the stock again and add the veggies in. Season the soup with salt and pepper. The carrot and radish will sweeten the soup, so it will be sweet naturally without adding sugar. Turn of the heat and cut some green in for color.


Step 5: Making the sauce:
- In a mortar, add garlic, chili, ginger, use the pestle to grind all the ingredients finely together. If you don't have mortar, put in a blender and blend them well. Take them out and put in a small bowl. Use half of a lime, that will give you about 1 tablespoon of lime juice, stir well. This step will enhance the red from the chili and make the sauce have a good color. Add the fish sauce, sugar and water in. Taste it to see if you like it or not, adjust more sugar or water. The sauce will be little bit spicy with a tang from the the ginger, sour from the lime and also sweet at a same time.

Step 6: For the chicken, all I do it put it on a cutting board, used a big knife and chopped into bite size pieces. But if you are inexperienced with knife or scared of it, I don't force you use it, it's for your own safety. So you can tear or shred the chicken meat. It works fine ^^.

And NOW IT"S DONE ^^

Put the yellow rice on a plate, place the chicken on top. Beside it, there is a small bowl of chicken soup. As you eat, drizzle some of the fish sauce on the rice and chicken. UHmmmmm, it'll be delicious. I just ate but right now I just want to go downstairs and get me another bowl. ^^


Hope you give it a try and PLZZZ tell me how it turns out. I'd love to read your comments.







-mobilemushroom-