Classic Steamed Chicken Rice

By Crivenica

My favorite meal of the day is breakfast. I can eat breakfast type of food for lunch or dinner and I often do. I love the American breakfast of eggs, bacon or sausage, with toasts or pancakes and I definitely enjoy the European breakfast of bread, pastries and cheese, but I have a weakness when it comes to Indonesian and Chinese breakfast items.

There are many Indonesian dishes eaten as breakfast that I can talk about for days like nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut milk), bubur ayam (chicken porridge), gado-gado (mixed steamed veggies coated in peanut sauce) or ketupat sayur (rice cooked in a woven palm leaf pouch served in a veggie coconut milk based broth). They are all so yummy and I ate them almost every morning when I was still living and working in Jakarta. That’s why I got so heavy!

But there is actually one “breakfast” dish that surprisingly not many people outside of the Chinese descendant population in Indonesia know much about. Though I’m sure anybody who’s exposed to a lot of Indonesian Chinese cuisine would know about this dish, but when I talked about it to my Indonesian friends here in Kathmandu, they had no idea what I was talking about. I had to explain it to them in details. 

Nasi Tim Ayam & Telor Pindang

It’s called Nasi Tim Ayam (Steamed Chicken Rice), a rice dish steamed in chicken broth, topped with ground chicken meat cooked in soy sauce. This dish actually can be found in many local neighborhood Chinese restaurants in Jakarta and can be eaten for any meal of the day. But a lot of the Chinese people in Jakarta would go to the Muara Karang market (north Jakarta) on a Sunday morning to eat at a famous Nasi Tim Ayam stand there, including our family. If you want to get your share of Nasi Tim there, you better wake up early because people would actually stand around waiting for a table and the supply doesn’t last much.

I know I talked about living a healthy lifestyle in my last post, but it doesn’t mean I can’t indulge in eating my favorite dishes once in awhile. And it just happened that I suddenly got a craving for Nasi Tim Ayam. So what else could I do but to call up my mom and asked her how to make it. It turned out to be quite easy. Here is the recipe if you’d like to try it yourself!

A - the chicken broth:
Boil some chicken bones to make some chicken broth. You’ll need about 3/4 to 1 liter of broth. Add some slices of ginger and adjust the taste with some salt.

B - the chicken topping:
250 gr  ground chicken
2-3       shallots, chopped
2-3     cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tbs    soy sauce
1/2 tbs sweet soy sauce

In a wok or pan, saute the chopped shallots and garlic until aromatic, then add in the ground chicken. When the chicken has changed color, add the soy sauce for taste and the sweet soy sauce for color. Adjust the taste with some salt and pepper. It should taste savory with a just a touch of sweetness. Cook until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Set aside.

C - The Rice & Final Assembly:
In a wok or pan, heat up a little oil and saute a cup or so of washed uncooked rice for about five minutes, just until the rice are covered and a bit dry. Set aside.

Prepare your steamer while you’re assembling the rice in half-quart bowls. I use tin bowls that I got from Indonesia, but you can use any type of small bowls that can stand heat.

In the bowl, put a good layer of the cooked chicken and pat it down. On top of the chicken, put about four tablespoons of the sauteed rice, then put about two-ladle full of broth. Use your judgment. The broth should just a little bit over the rice. There should be space in the bowl for the rice to expand. Then steam the filled bowls for about 30 minutes. When they’re done, the rice should be fully cooked, juicy, but without excess water. 

You should get about 4-6 bowls of rice if you're using an individual size type of bowls, which I recommend. But if you don't have small bowls and just want to make one big bowl for the family, go for it! Just make sure, it fits in the steamer.

To serve, cover a bowl of rice with a plate, flip it and carefully lift the bowl off. Some restaurants serve the steaming hot rice with a raw free-range egg on top. When mixed, the heat from the rice will cook the egg. This makes the dish even richer. 

However,  I never eat it like that. My mom usually serves it with Telor Pindang (eggs cooked in soy sauce). Below is the recipe for Telor Pidang. 

Ingredients:

5            boiled eggs, peeled
1-2        shallot, chopped
1-2        clove of garlic, chopped
3/4 lt     water
1.5 tbs   soy sauce
1/2 tbs   sweet soy sauce
1/2 tsp   Chinese five spice   

Saute the aromatics until fragrant, and add water, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce and the Chinese five spice. Add the eggs and cook on low heat until the eggs turn brown.

You can serve these eggs with the Nasi Tim Ayam, Hainanese Rice or simple Chinese boiled chicken.

Note:
A lot of these measurements are estimates because my mom cooks by feel. So please be cautious when putting in the soy sauce and taste as you cook. Enjoy!