We got an Instant Pot after Thanksgiving, and it’s probably the single greatest kitchen purchase I’ve ever made. We make dinner in it at least three times a week now.
My latest Instant Pot adventure is an attempt to cure my cold with chicken stock. I took what I liked from the Hainanese Chicken (garlic, ginger and green onions) and combined with with a classic chicken stock recipe (onions, carrots, celery, bay leaves) and ended up with a delicious delicious monster.
This cold doesn’t stand a chance.
Here’s the approximate recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 small whole roaster, quartered (or you can just throw in some backs and thighs).
- 2 large onions, quartered, also take the backbone out separately
- 2 large carrots, sliced
- 4 celery ribs, sliced
- 5-6 green onions, chopped
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 3″ finger of ginger, sliced
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- a bunch of black pepper (6-7 turns of our big grinder or, I don’t know, a dozen whole peppercorns)
- 4 slices of bacon, chopped (I forgot about that… I had some, so I threw it in)
Directions
- Turn your Instant Pot on Saute
- Throw in the bacon and stir it around until it’s rendered out a bunch of oil. I also threw in the backbone here to render out some chicken fat just for fun.
- Throw in the garlic and ginger and stir until you can really smell them (you don’t want them to burn)
- Cancel the saute.
- Throw in all the veggies
- This is the tricky part… it took a little fiddling to fit all the chicken in, but you can do it! I laid the leg quarters next to each other and then the breast pieces fit in along the sides. You might need to squish the veggies down. Or, it might work better to put the chicken on the bottom and the veggies on top. I don’t know. Do whatever works for you.
- Pour in enough water to get to the Max line (but not over, seriously, the Instant Pot gods will be angry)
- Put the lid on, seal it up, hit the Soup button and then set the time to 60 minutes.
- Let it naturally release (don’t go in and flip the vent thingy as soon as it beeps). That full, it’ll take at least 20 minutes and mine took 40.
- Pull out the chicken and then strain everything else through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth.
I served mine with just the shredded chicken and some rice noodles. The veggies from the pot were all pretty obliterated and mushy, so I didn’t want them. But, they were tasty, so that’s up to you.
I thought of it more like ramen broth where I’m adding it to pre-cooked noodles, meat and other veggies. And it was tasty, so I don’t think I was wrong.
Enjoy!