I initially wrote this when I was recovering from a bad, bad cold last year, and in no shape to be hanging my camera over a steaming dish of poached chicken and rice. I always meant to snap a photo when I made the dish again so I could post this. I’ve made it again many times, but never got around to the photos part. (Poached chicken doesn’t really photograph well.) But then I got insanely sick again this week, cooked this tonight, and remembered this post. And gosh it’s the most restorative dish when you’re coming off of almost 4 days of eating only broth, applesauce and oatmeal. And alas, no photos!
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I’ve been very sick recently, but one still must eat. Enter bak chee gai, which translates, I think, to white cut chicken. It’s delicious all the time, and not just when I’m nursing a bad cold, but for some reason I only think to make it for myself when I’m ill. This is what I made this past weekend when I was very sick and very exhausted and dragging my body around the kitchen to scrounge up some nourishment. I asked my Auntie Margie for her recipe for bak chee gai once, and hers involves plunging a whole chicken in and out of scalding broth a few times. This is not that recipe.
This is usually what happens in my parents’ house, and this is how I make my bak chee gai: Open your freezer that’s practically bursting with rock-hard anvils of frozen beef intestines or joong or small bites of food to be microwaved back to life and enjoyed at a later date. A single bao wrapped in saran wrap, for instance. Or three chicken patties. Six dumplings. The freezer is the place where food can be preserved indefinitely, after all. Locate a couple chicken thighs and drumsticks and wrestle the frozen food bricks back long enough the shut the door.
Thaw chicken and rinse it off. Throw four or five slices of skinned ginger and a couple green onions into a large pot of water, and bring to a boil. You’re not going for ginger tea or anything, and proportions are not important. Salt if you’d like. I never do. (My dad, actually, does not even bother with the ginger and green onions, but that’s just how my dad rolls. Dad recipes: One pot. Hot water. Raw chicken.)
Once your water is boiling, put chicken into the pot, and bring water back up to a boil. Put a lid on. Once you’ve got a nice healthy roiling bubble, shut the fire off and walk away. Don’t open the lid. Don’t touch the chicken. The steam has work to do. Wait 20 minutes, or maybe 30, and only then should you even think about opening the lid.
At this point you should be good to go. You could absolutely stop right there (this, again, is what my dad does) and eat with rice and oyster sauce for the most bare bones meal. On Sunday I used the poaching liquid to cook my rice, and it turned out quite nicely. If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can mince up a little bit of ginger and green onion real fine and put it into a heatproof bowl, then heat a couple tablespoons of oil in a small skillet until it’s just smoking. Pour it over your minced ginger-green onion paste and salt that gently. It’s a great garnish and dipping sauce for the chicken.
You’ll end up with poached chicken that’s fully cooked but silken and tender, and gently suffused with the healing powers of ginger and green onion.