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"  Anyone who&amp;#039;s ever visited Southeast Asia is familiar with Hainanese chicken and rice, typically served on a plastic plate at some roadside stand or down home food court. Perched on a rickety plastic stool, you dig into a heaping portion of boiled, flabby, pale chicken and equally pale rice, thinking, this is going to be the blandest dish on earth. How wrong you would be.  This comforting dish originates from the Hainan province in southern China (hence the name of the dish), but you&amp;#039;ll often find it on the streets of Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Its lack of color belies its explosion of flavors.  It consists of a whole chicken (skin-on) poached in chicken stock, then shocked in an ice bath. Traditionally, the stock is used over and over again, collecting more flavor each time it&amp;#039;s used. The rice is cooked in an equally well-seasoned broth whose key feature is an abundance of luscious chicken fat (and sometimes garlic and ginger). The rice emerges glossy and mouthwateringly fragrant. The accompaniments will vary from country to country, but in Thailand, where my family&amp;#039;s from, it always comes with sliced cucumbers, fresh cilantro leaves, a bowl of broth, and two sauces: one made of ginger and soy bean paste and a tangy chili garlic sauce.  Our version of this dish in the February issue is a quick and easy weeknight riff on Hainanese chicken and rice, which we felt was the perfect dish to showcase the method of gentle poaching.  We&amp;#039;ve simplified things by cooking just chicken breasts in a mixture of water and stock and using that poaching liquid as the base for one, simple sauce that combines the gingery, spicy, and tangy flavors of the traditional sauces. The rice is still rich and flavorful with aromatic ginger and garlic, but vegetable oil stands in for chicken fat. The cucumbers and cilantro are the finishing touch: crunchy, cool, and refreshing.   For another taste of Southeast Asia, try our version of a Vietnamese banh mi, a delectable pork sandwich that&amp;#039;s recently taken the US by storm. And don&amp;#039;t forget our Thai basil chicken stir-fry and grilled chicken chopped salad, my ultimate weeknight favorites.  Want to go behind-the-scenes at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute? Sign up for a free tour today! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-recipes/easy/a23163/asian-weeknight-dinners/>