The challenge of cooking chicken rice for most people often lies in ensuring that the bird is tender and the rice is fragrant.

But for Calsia Lee, 39, the greatest hurdle was cutting off the chicken’s head.

Then, in the early 1990s and an inexperienced cook, she had unknowingly bought a whole chicken, with its head still intact, from the supermarket.

The sales and marketing director of carpentry firm, Mu Dian, says: “I was horrified when I found the chicken head tucked inside its chest. I couldn’t bear to hold the chicken head down and chop it off.”

Nor could her two female flatmates. So they resorted to flinging the chopping knife like a dart at the chicken from a distance.

The bird went unharmed. The table, though, was badly chipped. They eventually sought help from their neighbour’s maid.

While this first attempt at cooking a proper meal did not go smoothly – she also forgot to add salt to the rice – it did not stop her from cooking.

She says: “I continued cooking at home because it is much cheaper than eating out and the food is healthier and tastier.”

Her persistence paid off. She now throws delicious dinner parties at her home in Hougang every fortnight and her guests often request her signature chicken rice.

On whether she still has trouble with chicken heads, she says: “No. My response then was ridiculous because I was shocked and I had never chopped off a chicken’s head before.”

She was orphaned at the age of 13 after her hawker mother, a divorcee, died of kidney failure.

Lee lived in a convent before moving out to live on her own at 19 after completing her O-level exams, and finding a job as a clerical officer.

Initially, she rented a room in a flat so it was inconvenient to cook and she had to survive on hawker food.

A few years later, she rented a flat with some friends. One of the first things she did after moving in was to try her hand at the recipes her godmother in Penang had painstakingly penned and mailed to her.

She says: “My godmother and I are very close. She was concerned that I wasn’t eating well after I moved out on my own so she sent me a recipe from her repertoire every few months.”

The 25 recipes included chicken rice, which she shares below, dry chicken curry and chicken feet with mushroom in black sauce.

Lee, who is single, no longer keeps the handwritten recipes as she has memorised them all.

Instead of poaching chicken, which is the usual method of preparing Hainanese chicken rice, her godmother’s version requires the chicken to be steamed.

She does not keep the meat firm by soaking the bird in ice water after it is cooked either.

Hence, the chicken meat in her version is more tender.

In addition, the steamed chicken is flavoured with Chinese cooking wine.

She says: “Visually, it’s not as pretty looking as the other version because the skin is a faint yellowish- brown, but the taste is great.”

The chicken rice lover cooks the dish at least once in two months. Other times, she gets her chicken rice fix from Pow Sing Chicken Rice in a coffee shop in Serangoon Gardens.

But she eats only its roast chicken rice because she finds her godmother’s Hainanese-style version tastier.

The gastronome is quick to add that she is not a fussy eater, although she has two pet peeves – oily food and Hokkien cuisine.

That said, she cannot stomach plain white rice in her chicken rice because “the best bit about chicken rice is how fragrant the stir-fried rice is”.

Running Mu Dian, which specialises in home finishings and employs 37 carpenters at its Sungei Kadut factory, leaves her with little time to experiment in the kitchen.

So to expand her repertoire of dishes, she relies heavily on her collection of some 50 cookbooks – mostly on Chinese cuisine – as well as recipes from friends. She also asks her godmother, who is in her late 60s and now living in Singapore, for recipes when she is not too busy looking after her grandchildren.

Lee hopes, however, that she will one day be able to come up with the recipe for a dry mee siam she tasted some years back.

She says: “I bought it from a young boy who was selling it at a makeshift stall in Bedok. The beehoon was delightfully springy to the bite and the flavouring was spot on.

“I haven’t been able to find the boy since, but its taste remains stuck in my head.”

Make it yourself: Chicken Rice

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, about 1kg, cleaned and with the skin removed from its neck and rear end
2Tbs Chinese cooking wine
3/4 tsp salt
4 cups rice, about 750g, rinsed and drained well
1Tbs sesame oil
8 slices ginger
3 cloves garlic, peeled, kept whole
12 fresh red chillies
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cucumber, washed and sliced

Method

1. Steam the chicken in a steamer for about 20 minutes till cooked. Retain the chicken stock which is formed when the meat juices seep into the water used for steaming.

2. When the chicken has cooled slightly, rub Chinese cooking wine and 1/4 tsp of salt on both the outside and inside.

3. Allow the chicken to cool completely before cutting it up into serving slices. Set aside.

4. Add sesame oil, four slices of ginger and rice to a heated wok. Stir fry the rice for around 12 minutes until it turns translucent and the moisture has evaporated from it.

5. Transfer the rice to a rice cooker. Add five cups of the reserved chicken stock, 1/4 tsp of salt and two cloves of garlic, and cook the rice.

6. Blend the chillies with four slices of ginger and a clove of garlic.

7. To the chilli paste, stir in sugar and 1/4 tsp of salt.

8. Serve the chicken slices with the cucumber and chilli sauce on the side.

Serves six people

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on July 27, 2008.