Hainanese Chicken Rice, the only thing you’ll crave after birth.
Image of Teresa Shields
“Blood-building, immune-fighting and milk-making Hainanese Chicken Rice is one of the most nutritious and wholesome dishes you can consume postpartum. Make it using ingredients from our friends at Meat Smith.”
In traditional Chinese Medicine, the mother is recommended to eat warm food during her postpartum. Why? Childbirth weakens the spleen, an organ that transforms food into nutritive essence before reaching the gut and rest of the body. This organ governs the movement of blood by keeping it flowing in its proper pathways in the blood vessels.
I never entirely understood why raw food was a fad. Cold and raw food (salads, cold-pressed juices and smoothies) are harder for your body to process than cooked food. Warming food (especially slow-cooked food) helps with digestion and ignites warmth in the gut whilst building blood resources. In traditional Chinese Medicine, blood is the essence of life (qi) and is often referred to as an extension of a mother’s milk. The more healthy blood cells we produce, the more milk a mother can make. The easiest way to build blood is to eat it. It might sound vampire-like, but if you have read the First Forty Day's, The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother, you'll know that all the recipes use some form of animal product. Bone broth and Congee are not just on trend because Naturopaths and Postpartum doulas happen to post about it on socials. These humble dishes are rooted in Asia, feeding nations of all economic backgrounds for generations. Congee, a glutenous rice dish, is comfort food, and in the Chinese tradition, it’s often served at dim sum. In Indonesia, Congee is known as Bubur Ayam. It is a popular chicken porridge served for breakfast made with fragrant galangal giving it a golden tinge served with a side of sambal. In Korea, it is known as Dakjuk and is often made with other root vegetables such as pumpkin and red bean.
Although the amount of blood loss after birth differs from each birther (c-section or vaginal), each birthing person will release a placenta. After the fourth and final stage of labour, once it detaches, the body is left with a gaping hole, an open wound that takes around three months to heal. Pregnancy also calls on enormous resources to use blood to help nourish and grow our baby, often depleting a woman's nutrients and energy.
The first meal after birth is not too dissimilar to the first shower. Something a new mother never forgets. If you’re birthing a the Royal Women’s, you can get your partner to pick up this dish from Chef Lagenda around the corner (I certainly did). Otherwise, if you’re preparing for newborn life or dealing with an onslaught of daycare sickness, this recipe is one for you. A recipe that echos joy and deliciousness, traditional to both Taiwan, Singapore and parts of Malaysia, this dish combines everything you need to heal your body, build blood and recover.
Ingredients.
The Chicken
1.5 kg whole organic chicken from your local Meat Smith Butcher
3 clove garlic, bashed
3 pieces of ginger, sliced and bashed
5 spring onions, knotted together
2 tbsp shaoxing rice wine
2 tbsp light soy
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp dark soy
3 tsp sesame oil
The Green Sauce
8 heads of the spring onions, finely sliced
1x 6-7-cm piece ginger, peeled, finely grated
2 tsp salt
⅓ cup(80 ml) vegetable or peanut oil
The Broth
1 Jar of water
The Sides
Sliced cucumber
1 spring onion, finely sliced
Boiled egg (optional but adds extra protein)
Rice (jasmine white rice)
¼ cup(60 ml) kecap minas
Method
Stuff all the chicken ingredients into the cavity of the bird and secure the opening with a short skewer or toothpick. Lower the chicken into a stock pot that fits it snugly around the sides but is tall enough to cover it with water and Meat Smith Chicken Stock. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce the heat to poach it very gently for 1 hour so that there is only a slow, steady stream of bubbles. Skim any frothy impurities and oil from the surface of the stock as it cooks.
To test if the chicken is cooked, lift it by one of the legs and if it pulls away easily where the thigh joins the body, it is done. Transfer the bird onto a plate, cover and set it aside.
To make the green sauce, combine spring onions, ginger, and salt in a small bowl. Heat the oil in the saucepan over high heat until smoking. Stand back while you pour it over the aromatics to avoid spitting oil. Mix and set aside (yum).
To serve, slice your cucumber and chicken and divide between 4 dinner plates. Pour about 1 cup of broth into 4 individual bowls and garnish with the sliced spring onions and a big generous squirt of kecap manis (holy moly it’s delicious).
To make your rice looks fancy, press about 1 cup of rice into a small rice bowl, then invert it onto individual dinner plates.
To see the video in action watch it on our socials here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeXy6NXFDM4/
To buy the ingredients shop at your local Meat Smith here.