"Hainan" Coconut Chicken Hotpot
How to make the "tropical" Chinese sensation that's... not actually from Hainan.
In tourism brochures and advertising campaigns, the southern island of Hainan is sometimes touted as “the Hawaii of China”.
I’ve always had a slight allergy to these kinds of monikers. Whether it’s ‘The Silicon Valley of China’ (Shenzhen) or ‘The Hamburger of China’ (Roujiamo) – “[insert foreign thing] of China” is practically always based off of a cartoonish simplification of both the Chinese thing and the foreign thing. Shenzhen is not silicon valley – the only thing they share is a preponderance of tech bros and a smattering of their financing. A roujiamo is not a hamburger – if anything, it’s closer to pulled pork, and even that’d be a stretch.
But on a sort of meta-level, [thing] of China nicknames can also be interesting, because they give you a peek into the collective imagination of these places.
And Hainan? Well, here’s a brief sampling of the images you can find on Xiaohongshu, the Instagram of China (dammit…):
Sunny beaches, happy vibes. China’s Hawaii, China’s tropical paradise.
Of course, there’s obviously a lot more to the island than this cartoon version of it – just as there’s a lot more to Hawaii than that popular imagination of lei flowers and hoola hoops.
Getting back to food though, in America that collective imagination of Hawaii left an indelible influence on American food and drink via “Tiki Culture”. I’m probably not the best person to re-hash the Tiki Bar tale, but worth highlighting is that the Tiki Bars of the 40s and 50s didn’t just give us the boozy concoctions of the Mai Tai, the Blue Hawaii, and the Singapore Sling. The very first Tiki bars hired Cantonese-Americans and served Chinese food – and it’s here that what would one day become the Chinese takeout menu would begin to take shape: Sweet and Sour chicken. Pu pu platters. Crab Rangoons.
And in the same way, that collective imagination of Hainan? It’s also began to influence how people eat in China as well.
“Hainan Coconut Chicken Pot”
All around China – from Shanghai, to Inner Mongolia, to Sichuan, to Xinjiang – you can find a sort of hotpot called “Hainan Coconut Chicken” (海南椰子鸡). They’re the type of restaurant that, especially when I was younger, I’d sort of turn my nose up at. They’re quite often either a chain restaurant or a wanna-be chain, frequently found in malls and glossy central business districts, and sport theme-y décor of the tropical variety. A little like The Cheesecake Factory, it’s the kind of restaurant that your sort-of-lame-doesn’t-know-food friend will drag you to for their birthday.
But as I get a bit less cynically dour over time, I’m forced to admit that the dish itself is actually quite tasty. I mean… it’s good chicken cooked in coconut water, complete with a great dip. The soup itself is drinkable and delicious. What’s not to like? The restaurants are a solid choice for families, the non-spicy eaters can adjust their own dipping sauce, the non-drinkers can enjoy a fresh coconut of water instead of resorting to soda. I dunno, I guess I’m getting soft. Maybe it’s about high time that I swing back to The Cheesecake Factory.
But in addition to being begrudgingly delicious, I think the dish itself actually tells an important tale.
Because Hainan coconut chicken hotpot?
Is… not from Hainan.
The Invention of Hainan Coconut Chicken Pot
Hainan Coconut Chicken Hotpot – at least, what everyone knows and loves as “Hainan Coconut Chicken Hotpot” – was a Shenzhen invention.
I’ll spare you the lecture on the story of Shenzhen city. For the totally unfamiliar, we went over the broad strokes of what you’d need to know in our previous Shenzhen Chicken Pot video. That said, if you’re only familiar with today’s narrative of Shenzhen (i.e. “the Silicon Valley of China”, or “the Silicon Valley of Hardware”), while you might be aware of how the city began to serve as a cornerstone in global manufacturing… that’s also not the entire story. What seems to be a bit less often told is how, culturally, the city also served as a sort of ‘weekend haunch’ for Hong Kongers – that sort of global bordertown where people on the richer side of the checkpoints can cash in some of their unrealized economic privilege. Shopping? Check. Massages? Check. ‘Massages’? Check. Cuisine? …of course!
So around the main border checkpoints with Hong Kong, particularly Luohu, Futian, and Shekou… restaurants sprang up to service Hong Kong weekenders and business people. And among those restaurants, there was one named Feilao Yeziji (肥佬椰子鸡), across from what’s now the Wenjindu border checkpoint, which specialized in none other than a coconut chicken hotpot.
The man behind that restaurant was actually a Indonesian businessman living in Hong Kong, of Hainanese-Chinese roots. His name was Huang Yabin (黄亚斌), and their hotpot was a rather understated affair at its core: it featured quality Wenchang chicken – a fatty Hainanese breed popular in Guangdong – cooked in coconut water fresh from the fruit, and… not much else:
It would be a fair guess that this pot drew a bit from Mr. Huang’s roots – after all, in Hainan there also is a soup that features coconut and chicken, albeit frying it and flavoring with coconut milk (an approach which – enticingly but probably coincidentally – has some parallels to Thai Tom Ka Gai). The restaurant’s, shall we say, “original flavor” version proved quite popular with a Cantonese crowd, and even today you can find people lining up outside of Feilao on the weekends.
How Coconut Chicken Got “Tropical”
So there’s a couple things that are going on here that’re very… 90s and 00s.
Enticed by the mainland’s opening and the business opportunities that ensued, Mr. Huang rebased himself from Southeast Asia to the Pearl River Delta. It’s an underrated dynamic of China’s reform and opening, as Shenzhen was not built ‘from scratch’. Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian business people – rife with their institutional know-how and international connections from the Asian Tiger period – really undergirded a large swath of the mainland’s manufacturing growth.
Second, a restaurant was opened up near the border to entice Hong Kong weekenders. Doesn’t get more classically Shenzhen than that.
But… we’re still only partway to the coconut chicken hotpot that everyone knows and loves. To get there, we need to complete the trifecta – the massive boom in Chinese travel, both domestic and international:
And like much of the world, a good chunk of this activity ended up being directed to ‘tropical’ beach-y places. Internationally, Thailand and Malaysia were popular choices; domestically, the southern island of Hainan. And like a lot of ‘tropical’ ‘exotic’ destinations worldwide, there ends up being a bit of a mish-mash effect: these days, the Chinese popular imagination of the ‘tropical’ has sort of settled into an equilibrium of part-Thailand, part-Hainan, and part American-Tiki-Bar.
Against that backdrop, enter Huang Rigao. A Cantonese businessman from Maoming, in 2009 he opened a hotpot restaurant called Runyuan Siji (润园四季). This restaurant built off of Huang Yabin’s coconut chicken base, but with two important innovations.
First, they added a handful of Cantonese-soup elements to the pot itself. In addition to coconut water and coconut meat, they tossed in water chestnuts, corn, red dates, and goji berry. This was mirrored with their choice of sides: right next to the pot, no meal at Runyuan is complete without Cantonese claypot rice topped with Lap Cheong sausage.
But second, and perhaps more importantly, they really leaned into the ‘tropical island’ vibe. There’s palms and similar tropical greenery sprinkled around the restaurant. You’ve got rattan chairs, Hainan themed porcelain, and banana leaf shaped serving plates. Their dipping sauces start with a Chaotianjiao-Soy Sauce base (one of the rare ‘spicy’ Cantonese dips and Shenzhen classic), but hits it with a generous spritz of Calamansi lime. There’s tropical themed desserts, and coconut water fresh from the fruit.
And it’s this concept that… exploded, and what we’ll be teaching you today.
Adjusting for the Western Kitchen?
So… this is a fun dish, but before setting out to make this video I was unaware just how - dare I say - quick and easy Coconut Chicken Pot is. It’s one of those dishes where the deliciousness-to-effort ratio is just through the roof, which is probably why it can make for a pretty profitable business.
The thing is? From my time in China, hotpot was never the most popular-with-expats meal concept. And while its reputation in the west itself is a bit better (perhaps partially due to its reputation as a premium good), I’m also well aware that not everyone has a kitchen set-up for hotpot - or a deep conception of how to start. If that describes you, I would also recommend checking out our Hotpot 101 video…
…but given that deliciousness-to-effort quotient, we also wanted to ease some of the potential pain points here.
So we also decided to craft and alternative way to serve this thing, akin to a Chinese ‘fast food’ style set meal. So we’ll be breaking this up into four sections:
How to make the coconut chicken pot.
How to serve it as a hotpot.
How to make a side of Lap Cheong claypot rice.
How to serve it as a non-hotpot set meal.
Coconut Chicken Pot
Ingredients:
Note if you cannot find young coconuts: Substitute the 1L of coconut water for 750mL of unsweetened coconut water and 250mL of water (bottled coconut water is a bit more concentrated). You can skip the coconut meat if you must, but the meat from mature coconut would work in a pinch.
Water from two young coconuts, 1L
Flesh from the above coconuts, ~½ cup
Chicken, 750g. Three routes: the Chinese way would be using one whole chicken, cleaved into ~1.5 inch pieces across the bone. Alternatively, you could go with boneless chicken, by cutting thigh into ~2 inch sections. You could also cleave drumsticks into 3-4 pieces, and wings in half.
For the dipping sauce:
Garlic (大蒜), 1 large clove
Ginger (姜), 1/2 inch
Fresh chilis (新鲜辣椒), 1-2
Cilantro (香菜), 1 sprig
MSG (味精), ⅛ tsp
Sugar, ½ tsp
Soy sauce (生抽), 2 tbsp
Water, 1.5 tbsp
Calamansi limes, 2 -or- kumquat, ½ -or- Mandarin orange, ½ -or- orange, ¼
Corn (玉米), 1/2 ear
Water chestnuts (马蹄), 16
Ginger (姜), 1 inch. Smashed.
Dried red dates (红枣), 6
Goji berries (枸杞), 1 tsp
Process:
To prep:
Crack open two young coconuts, straining the water into a large bowl. You should have one liter. Scrape ½ cup worth of coconut flesh from the coconuts, rinse, and keep with the coconut water.
If you do not have young coconut, use 750mL of coconut water mixed with 250mL of water. You can use mature coconut for the coconut flesh.
For the 750g of chicken - if you are using thigh, slice out the bone and cut the thigh into ~2 inch pieces. If you are cleaving drumstick, cleave into 3-4 pieces.
Cut half an ear of corn into three sections. If unpeeled, peel 16 water chestnuts.
For the dipping sauce:
Mince one large clove of garlic and ½ inch of ginger. Slice 1 to 2 spicy fresh chilis. Roughly chop one sprig of cilantro.
Mix the above with ⅛ tsp MSG, ½ tsp sugar, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1.5 tbsp water, and the juice from either two calamansi limes, half a kumquat or Mandarin, or ¼ of an orange.
Scale the above up based off of how many people are eating. For me and Steph, we can share one dip. If you’re feeding a crowd, you might want eat person to have their own.
For the pot:
To a pot, add the chicken, the coconut water, the flesh, the water chestnuts, the corn, an inch of smashed ginger, and six dried red dates. Bring up to a boil and skim. Coconut can be rather ‘gunky’, so no need to be too obsessive. Add in 1 tsp of goji berries and cover with the lid ajar.
If serving as a hotpot, boil for eight minutes.
If serving as a set meal, boil for ten minutes.
How to Serve as a Hotpot
This pot is very good with a side of rice or claypot rice. For instructions on how to make the claypot rice, see below.
Once you transfer the pot over to your serving stove, swap the heat to low. You don’t want the chicken to get over cooked.
For some basic order of operations, it’s totally up to you, but we might suggest something like (1) drinking some of the soup at first (2) munching on the chicken with the dip, interspersed with bites of rice/claypot rice then (3) upping the flame to medium-high and continuing with the meal like a hotpot.
There are a few classics with this dish:
Fried tofu skin rolls (响铃卷)
Freshly made shrimp balls
Fish balls, fresh or frozen
Beef balls, fresh or frozen
Thinly sliced hot pot beef
Napa cabbage
Daikon
Winter melon
Crab sticks
Bamboo mushroom (竹笙)
Rice noodles, pre-soaked
Try not to opt for things with overly strong flavors like smoked tofu, bacon, shiitake mushroom, etc. Or if you do, add it at the very end, as it will muddy the flavor of the soup.
And of course, be sure to serve alongside coconut water from the fruit (with a straw, little umbrella optional). On a similar note, this might also be a nice time to dust off any borderline-problematic ethnic Hlai garb you may have lying around your closet.
Lap Cheong Claypot Rice
Note that we’ll simply be following our previous claypot rice video here. Our method is slightly unorthodox (we also make use of an oven) and is designed to maximize the crispy rice bits at the bottom of the pot.
Note on equipment: You'll need a claypot, obviously. We're using a small 1L/18cm glazed claypot. This is the exact claypot that we use (probably unavailable, but still a decent visual). Many Chinese supermarket may carry them.
Claypots from other cultures should work fine so long as they're glazed. If you don't have a claypot, I've heard enameled cast iron can be a suitable substitute. Something cast iron should also be able to work with this recipe (rice texture will be fine), but you might need to play around with it in order to get ideal crisping.
Regarding stoves, if your gas stove burner cover does not allow you to dip the pot into the flame, see if you can remove it for that final blast. If not, only do a 30 second blast to crisp up the very bottom (the sides will not be crispy, but that's ok).
If you have an electric stove, make sure the burner is up to temperature before placing the claypot on it (otherwise the timing'll be a bit goofy). Then for the final blast, just do the same as those with immovable gas grates - 30 seconds only to crisp up the very bottom.
For those with induction, I have heard the best way to cook with clay is to place your claypot over a preheated cast iron skillet (i.e. have the cast iron be the medium between the stove and the claypot). I have not had experience with this before. Assuming it works (I see no reason why it wouldn't), handle just as you would if you were using electric.
Also, this recipe assumes you have a kitchen scale. If you don't have one already, buy one. They're cheap and super useful.
Ingredients:
Jasmine Rice (泰国香米/粘米), 210g
Hot, boiled water, ~210mL. Follow as per the video, as the rice will already take on some water from rinsing. The rice plus water TOGETHER should equal 440g. You will likely have ~20g of water from rinsing the rice, so that implies ~210g of hot, boiled water.
Oil, preferably peanut. ~1 tsp to rub on the claypot at the beginning of cooking, ~1 tbsp to swirl around the sides right before putting in the oven
For the seasoned soy sauce:
Soy sauce (生抽), 2 tsp
Fish sauce (鱼露), 1 tsp
Water, 1/2 tbsp
Sugar, 1/4 tsp
MSG (味精), ~1/16 tsp
Process:
Rinse 210g of rice, add to a bowl on a scale. It should have already taken some liquid (likely the scale will read ~230g). Add enough hot, boiled water from the kettle to hit 440g. Let sit for 30 minutes.
During that time, make a seasoned soy sauce. Our mix is 2 tsp of soy sauce, 1 tsp of fish sauce, ½ tbsp of water, ¼ tsp of sugar, and 1/16 tsp of MSG.
Slice 60g of Lap Cheong or Lap Yuk into ~3mm pieces.
After the rice is done soaking, rub the ~1 tsp oil onto the claypot, then add in the rice together with the soaking liquid. Place over a medium high flame.
Once strong steam is coming out of the rice cooker (~6-7 minutes), let it go for one minute longer. Then uncover - you should not see any liquid remaining. Pour the ~1 tbsp oil around the sides, sprinkle over the sausage, and pop in the oven for 20 minutes at 230C on the bottom rack.
After its done, drizzle on the seasoned soy sauce. Then blast the claypot rice on a medium-high flame to accentuate the crust, 30 seconds each side (for 2.5 minutes, total). As per the discussion about equipment, only do a 30 second blast on the bottom if your stove is uncooperative.
How to Serve as a ‘Set Meal’
The above pot should be enough to serve two people. Simply boil for the prescribed ten minutes in place of eight, and serve alongside the claypot rice (which should also be enough for two people). Be sure to include the dipping sauce.
A bit of blanched vegetable would be an easy way to round out the meal - Napa, Lettuce, or Choy Sum might be nice.
Get a pot of water up to a boil and add in a bit of salt (about ¼ tsp) and oil (about one teaspoon). Just blanch the vegetable - 10 seconds for lettuce, 60 seconds for napa, Choy Sum, etc. Remove, but don’t rinse as you want the oil to cling to the vegetable.
I knew this food because of Minghao Seventeen and I really want to try it