Following queries by Jenn and the unamed-yet friend at Food to Make you Miss your Plane about the Missus’ chicken Ham included in some of my bentoes, I decided to do some personal research (complemented by some comments from the Missus who is very cagey about her own recipes!).
Now, the following recipe is for Chicken Ham in the shape of a “ham”.
Natyrally, you can, like the Missus keep the original shape of the chicken breast.
You can slice or shred the chicken as shown above in the combination chicken/avocado salad. Variations are almost endless!
Ingredients:
-One large chicken breast: 250g
-Sugar: 1 large tablespoon
-Coarse salt-black pepper mixture: 1 large tablespoon
Recipe:
Get rid of all skin and fat.
“Puncure” chicken shallowly on both sides.
Sprinkle sugar on both sides and
throughly brush it in on both sides.
repeat procedure with coarse salt-black pepper mixture.
Water will start oozing out.
Tightly seal inside zip-lock type vinyl envelope and leave it 48 hours inside the fridge (Get as much air out as possible before sealing!).
After the first 24 hours inside the fridge, throw out the water that has accumulated, reseal and put back inside the fridge.
That’s how it looks when you take it out of the fridge after 48 hours.
Take chicken ou, clean lightly with running water, and then let it rest in clear water for 30 minutes to get rid of the excess salt.
Take out of water and carefully get the chicken rid of water with kitchen paper.
“Roll” the chicken breast into a “hm” shape and secure it with a wooden toothpick 8avoid any contact with naked metal!).
Bind the chicken with cooking thread tightly until you have attained a ham shape. Take toothpick out and discard.
Wrap tightly into cellophane paper.
Wrap into foil paper twice.
Note: the Missus does not wrap it into anthing and just lowly directly boil the chicken into chicken bouillon.
In a big enough pan bring water to boil.
Put the foil paper-wrapped chicken inside water and switch off fire.
Cover with lid and leave it as it it is for 7~8 hours.
Take chicken out with its foil paper and let it rest inside fridge for 24 hours.
Note: The Missus will put the chicken and the whole broth inside a Tupperware box before puttin it inside the fridge.
Get Chicken ham out. Discard foil paper and thread.
Cut it to your liking.
Serve.
That is when the fun starts!
Great as salads, in sandwiches and of course bentoes!
Note: The Missus sometimes, as an extra last step, smokes the whole chicken in green tea leaves!
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