A generous chicken & rice
Where doing less gets you more
Hello to new subscribers who found their way here from last week’s Dinner Tetris. If you have no idea where “here” is: This is a newsletter full of abundant, streamlined recipes — because they’re all made of the same 40 ingredients.
Welcome,
Ali
On two occasions in as many months, I showed up to someone’s house with two cooked whole chickens.
Though more bewildering and precarious than a bouquet of flowers or bottle of wine, sometimes you just really want to share a chicken with friends.
The first time, they were paprika-roast chickens: two birds and three pounds of potatoes roasted together on a sheet pan for a couple of hours. The sauce makes itself as the chicken drippings collect beneath, tangy with lemon and brick-red from paprika. It has everything going for it: meat, potatoes, sauce, crispy skin, bones, brawn.
The second occasion was Hainanese chicken and rice with ginger-scallion sauce. Its appeal is more nuanced. The shades of beige and softness don’t really let on how much flavor is waiting for you. It may not have the guts, glory, singe, and smoke of a roasted bird. And yet it was astonishing how good it tasted: satisfyingly light with a richness that lingered.
What I love most about Hainanese chicken and rice is that its efficiency isn’t a shortcut — it’s an improvement. The chicken gently simmers with ginger, scallions, soy sauce, and other aromatics, becoming silky and succulent while turning water into broth. That same broth, along with more ginger, scallions, and the chicken’s trimmed fat, makes rice into a special rice. The two components taste related, because they are, and distinct, because they are.
In the mid-19th century, the dish traveled from the Chinese island of Hainan throughout Southeast Asia. Wherever it landed, its DNA stayed intact while its flourishes shifted.
Today’s recipe shifts it again, to accommodate my 40 ingredients and nights when carving a chicken isn’t happening. Boneless, skinless thighs and store-bought broth stand in for skin and bones. The ginger-scallion sauce pulls double duty, too: Some is sizzled with the rice while it cooks, and the rest is spooned onto servings. Here, this multitasking isn’t lazy or lesser. It’s generous. More.
