Instant Pot Singapore Chicken Rice

Singapore Chicken Rice – a humble dish created out of wanting to stretch the use of the chicken as much as one can. I’m sure that when the dish was created years & years ago, it never thought it will become one of Singapore National dish that is eaten all over the world…oh well, except in my part of the world where no other Singaporeans reside lol

According to David Farley’s article, Chicken Rice from Maxwell Food Centre in Singapore was worth him flying 15 hours from New York to come eat it. And get this, Chicken Rice is sold in many places in New York. David specifically flew to Singapore and went to Maxwell Food Centre to eat at 30-year-old food stall Tian Tian, a spot renowned for its Singapore chicken rice that has gotten praise from even the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsay. 

Chicken Rice can be found ANYWHERE in Singapore. Not kidding. We love this dish so much. I can eat it 2-3 times a week. But while you can find it everywhere, there are only a selected few places that have made the top in not just my mind but in every Singaporean’s too. There would be a chicken rice place within 5 mins walking distance from where I live but I would have no qualms traveling all the way for 45 mins or more to another chicken rice place to join a insane long line just to eat what I feel is a better chicken rice version. My hubby often jokes that to get a Singaporean to love a food, just create a long line as a marketing strategy. He’s not exactly wrong LOL. We will line up to get good food but we are also very good at sussing out the bad places lol.

So now let’s talk about making it in the Instant Pot. I first saw the Instant Pot recipe on pressurecookrecipes.com and I was hooked. I really wanted to make it but felt it was too much steps for my tiny brain. So I thought maybe I could adapt it to make it simpler for me. I’m 100% positive theirs taste better but for the convenience and time saved for me, I am happy to compromise with what I feel is still a pretty ok recipe. It will never top my Favorite Chicken Rice in Singapore but it’ll do; my craving is satisfied & Ryan gets to experience his Singapore culture 😀 . That’s all that matters to me. I was worried Ryan wouldn’t like it but he LOVES it!!!

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So Some Things About This Recipe:

• This is a very humble Singapore dish but one that every Singaporean loves and is proud of. But not all my Canada friends would appreciate the white pale chicken that is fundamental to this dish. My hubby is one of them. So instead of needing to cook a separate dish for him, I just brush BBQ sauce on 2 of the chicken legs and broil them on High in oven for 10 mins and he gets BBQ Chicken Legs and we get our traditional chicken
• I love using frozen chicken but ALWAYS make sure you separate the chicken pieces first before placing in pot. Either leave it out to thaw for a bit which is way too troublesome for me or defrost it in microwave for 10 mins. Chicken will still be frozen but you can now separate the pieces
• The original recipe from Pressurecookrecipes.com has more steps than my recipe but I definitely took my inspiration from their recipe and I am 100% certain theirs must taste better than mine but I am not picky. I always think that any food that is made with love and patience always taste better and I have Love but definitely not the Patience LOL. I am honestly though quite happy with the results of my adapted recipe so this will work for my family but if you want an even better result, I suggest you follow the original recipe as I definitely took a lot of shortcuts. Thanks Amy & Jacky at Pressurecookrecipes.com!! 😀
• Condiments are very important to us in eating this dish. I only had dark soy sauce so that’s all I used. But the original Singapore Chicken rice is served with freshly minced chilli sauce, garlic and ginger. I didn’t have all the above so dark soy sauce will have to do
• While the chicken is an important part of the dish, the rice is really of the essence. That’s where the seasoning mix and that broth comes in. If you want to be even more lazy, use campbell chicken broth but for the rice to have that fragrance, oil from the chicken is important. Thus, cooking the rice with the broth that was used to steam the chicken helps make the rice so much nicer than using Campbell. While the chicken gets cooked, the chicken fat drips into the water in the pot making it the perfect rich chicken broth to cook the rice in.
• I use puree for the seasoning mix but feel free to use fresh

Enjoy and I hope you like it as much as Ryan and I did 😀