Sometimes you sit and wonder how a simple recipe of chicken and rice makes such fuzz about itself. It is true: If I had that Singapore Chicken and the broth and someone asked me to keep one (the chicken or the soup) and through the other one away, it would be the broth I am keeping.

Spring Onion and Tomatoes

And while some of your friends are running around through the other part of the world with kangaroos and didgeridoos, you remember with who all you have been in Thailand already.

For example the one German guy who might be up earliest at 3pm in Patong Beach and just come around the corner to have a coffee and look through the world with heavy eyelids.

Dudel One

Or one of your fond one’s who visited Thailand the first time when he was 15. After he had his first impressions of Bangkok and Phuket he always remembered everything you start to talk about the holidays together.

Maybe it was the Singapore Chicken, which laid a calm and sweet taste to your palate and opened this day to all the possibilities Thailand offers. Anyway, a good start for the day!

This is what you need for the chicken: 1 chicken, vegetable broth or chicken broth – second best for this endeavour would be the real chicken broth you get in Sainsbury’s (if you have one in front of your house), the first place in taste would be 1 leek, half of celery, 2 carrots and some parsley, pickled whole garlic, salt and pepper. Put the free range chicken and the broth and the other ingredients together in to a big pot and start to heat it. Cook it slowly, never let it boil so the meat of the chicken will be soft and if it is finished after 1.5 hours get it from the cooking place and the chicken out of the broth.

The Day has just Started!

Start to cock the rice. Do not use water but some of your broth of the chicken: You need a bit more broth than you would use water. If you have a rice cooker, for 4 people put 2 cups of rice and 3 cups of broth, put some slices of ginger in. While it stirs use a spoon to mix the rice and the broth gently 2 or 3 times.

Take the cooked chicken and separate the meat from the bones. Put the bones and everything you don’t want to eat back in to the broth. For the sauce you need a bit more than 1 cup of your soy bean paste, sweet soy sauce (it is darker and much thicker than the other soy sauces), 2 roots of ginger, lime juice and a bit of sugar. Put it all into a high tumbler and use a hand mixer to mix it all together. Try the sauce first! It should be sour and spicy and a just a bit sweet. You see that is the problem: I just got the recipe this Saturday morning from my partner and have to cope dealing with it. But I am sure, with the time you will be near the sauce my partner would have produced in the nick of time. Put some small cut chilli in it, if you think you can dare.

Serve the rice and the Singapore Chicken, with slices of cucumber and leaves of coriander, the sauce comes extra so everyone can take it separately, and the broth in a separate bowl. It just takes like a fresh morning over Patong Beach. And if you go there around 10am you might still feel that everything is possible!

• On a Rainy Day
• I am hungry!