A healthy one dish meal!

In this post, i'll be introducing to you a healthy one dish meal.

What's a healthy one dish meal?
A healthy one dish meal is simply a meal that doesn't have its components cooked and served separately. In a one dish meal, every component plays an important role in giving the dish its identity. For example, spaghetti will still be spaghetti even if you don't add cheese to it but will Hainanese Chicken Rice still be the same without the chicken, or the cucumber, or the rice? Basically, a one dish meal combines the various components of the different food groups in a balanced single dish. The meal i'll be introducing is Nasi Ayam.

What is Nasi Ayam?
Nasi Ayam is a malay word which is directly translated to English to be "Rice Chicken". That's right, Nasi Ayam is the malay version of the well known Hainanese Chicken Rice in Singapore. The difference beween Nasi Ayam and chicken rice would be that the chicken is roasted rather than simmered in chicken stock like that of Hainanese chicken rice . The rice is fragrant thanks to the use of  a pandan leaf when cooking and the chicken is also slighlty orangish compared to the chicken rice chicken. Nasi ayam also wouldn't be the same without its chilli sauce that has a slightly tangy taste.
 
Recipe for Nasi Ayam: ( taken from petit chef.com)

Ingredients for Chicken:
1 small fresh organic free-range chicken

3 shallots, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 small piece ginger, minced

1 Tbsp. dark soy sauce

2 tsp. light soy sauce

1 Tbsp. tomato paste or sauce

1 tsp. chilli powder or chilli sauce

1 tsp. salt

1 cucumber for garnishing

Ingredients for Rice:

2 cups rice, washed and drained

1 small piece ginger

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. butter

2 pandan leaves

2 Tbsp. fried shallots

pinch of salt
Ingredients for Chilli Sauce:

6 fresh red chillies

5 cloves garlic

1 piece ginger

¼ cup lime juice

1 tsp. sesame oil

salt and sugar to taste

Method:

1. Mix the ingredients for chicken in a bowl. Clean chicken and pat dry, prick with a fork to allow seasonings to penetrated. Marinate chicken with seasonings for 1/2 day or leave overnight in refrigerator.

2. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Roast chicken for about an hour, remove and cut into serving pieces when cool.

3. Wash rice and put in rice cooker. Heat some butter in a pan and fry ginger and garlic till fragrant. Remove from heat and pour this mixture and pandan leaves to rice. Add sufficient water to cook according to the rice cooker.

4. Blend or pound finely all the ingredients for the chilli sauce. Season to taste with sugar and salt.

5. Serve rice with chicken, sliced cucumbers, chilli sauce and dark soy sauce. Garnish rice with some fried shallots.

Tips: Soak peeled shallots with a pinch of salt in water for about 5 minutes. Slice thinly and deep fry in hot oil till crisp and brown. Drain on paper towels