What's the Difference between Idea and Message.

 Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Mention Hainanese chicken rice and almost everyone in the culinary world would agree to its unique trinity of flavours working in perfect unity to deliver a most satisfying meal.

So good that some nation would be kiasu enough to stake claims on its origin.

Be that as it may, the iconic HCR remains one of the top dishes in the region stretching from Hainan island down to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore & Indonesia. Basically where Chinese immigrants reside.

It wasn’t a big hit until local Hainans who missed their simple home dish of Wenchang chicken, started to improvise steamed (poached) chicken then hoisted and dunked in ice water to firm the meat. Next, white rice embedded with bits of garlic & ginger, cooked with margarine (or butter) & chicken fat. Finally, probably the most important element in the tripartite, the fresh chili sauce which is most tedious to make. Finely ground red chillies mixed with garlic and ginger paste, sprinkled with salt & sugar, and doused with lime juice for that spicy tangy accompaniment to the firm white pieces of chopped chicken and the yellow-tinged rice.
Heap a spoonful of each in equal measure, shovel it into your mouth and you get to taste the origins & culture of the people behind it and in the process, recognise humanity’s creativity transcending race or origin. Making it ever widely acceptable to people of all nationality. In 2018 CNN listed it as one of the “World’s 50 best foods.” The BBC called it “the dish worth the 15-hour flight.”

Like most good ideas, they only exist to serve the message. The ideas do not eclipse the message, instead they make the message more evident.

In this case, the idea was simple: Make the basic ingredients of chicken, rice and chili sauce taste great together. The message was delivered eloquently via a dish called Hainanese Chicken Rice.

Just writing about it makes my mind wander to all the different iterations of chicken rice I have tasted across the region. Admittedly the dish served south of the border does taste pretty good. Almost as good as the ‘khao man khai’ served in the friendly country north of the border.

What’s your favourite dish? What’s the idea behind your dish?

https://seemagetsbaked.com/recipe/hainanese-chicken-rice-singapore/