Greasy Spoon

I made Hainan Chicken today.  For the past month, I've pretty much been a food bum, eating leftovers, pasta, pizza, whatever is easy to make, and more often than not, missing my daily 2-5.  But ever since I brought home Peruvian chicken leftovers last week to make chicken salad, something has clicked.  Since Monday, I've made pizza (not so different than earlier this month, but delicious), gotten garden vegetables for a pressed grilled vegetable sandwich (Ming Tsai inspired, with bean sauce and everything), more chicken salad with homemade peanut dressing, set aside my basil to freeze, and tonight, I made Hainan chicken (with rice), and with that, chicken broth.  Even though it's a classic Chinese/Southeast Asian dish, I started with Mark Bittman's The Minimalist recipe.  That's because Chinese recipes I read merely list the ingredients and say "stir fry" and "season."  Mark Bittman takes you step by step.  Although I must say, I cook like the Chinese recipes I hardly consult.  I don't actually follow Mark Bittman step by step.  And if I were to give you a recipe of how I made the chicken, it'd look like it, too:  poach chicken (but how?), add scallions, soy sauce, oil, sesame oil, and garlic to taste (even though I hate ginger, I knew this dish needed ginger-- mine's still delicious though).  Done.  But that's really what I did.  Poached chicken was much fattier than I expected.  In fact, the whole dish was.  But that was the beauty of the dish.  Salty, oily rice with strings of chicken, and some shredded lettuce to balance things out.  I can't wait to be hungry again.