Steamed Chicken with Snowpea Leaves and Green Garlic Ginger Relish

From Spice by Christine Manfield page 162

This dish had its roots firmly set in hainanese chicken rice, with additional flair provided by Christine Manfield.

However - my first confession - I didn't use snowpea leaves. I served the dish with snowpeas on the side, but no snowpea leaves were found in sight.

My second confession - the final result didn't look like the picture from the book.
(that goes with all my recipe cooking though...)

But it tasted great!

It's a simple dish to prep, with those core steamed Chinese chicken flavours.

(you'll notice the 'what it should have looked like' picture in the top-left of the pic below)

The recipe said to steam for 50 minutes, but my chooks needed more like 90 before they were cooked through. Possibly because they were bigger, or because they were still cold out of the fridge, or due to covering them with a pot lid rather than the prescribed baking paper and foil.

The end result was great. The green garlic ginger relish was the perfect accompaniment, as any fan of hainanese chicken rice would know. Rather than slicing neatly I jointed the chicken, then served with the relish, rice, and a second dish - san choy bau - based on a recipe from Kylie Kwong.

Home made Chinese banquet!