Vietnamese Boiled Chicken

This is my partners mum's recipe for boiled chicken. Very basic, but 100% vietnamese and it makes the quickest, most succulent chicken I've ever had!

1. 1

   This is a very very basic simple recipe for cooking an entire chicken.
   1. Clean your chicken. Cut off the tail and remove as much fat as you possibly can from the inside of the chicken. Cut off any excess skin, looking at the edge of the cavity, and the neck. Finally remove the feet by cutting through the joint. Make sure that you get out as much of the tendons as you can.
   2. Put the cleaned chicken in a pan that it will fit in comfortably. Then pour in about 1/2 a kettles worth of boiling water, making sure this runs over the breast of the chicken. This will help to tighten it and stop it becoming flabbly.
   3. Top up the pan with water so that the chicken is as covered as you can get it. There should be very little of the chicken poking out.
   4. At this point, you can add anything else you want to the mixture. Traditionally, nothing would be added. Personally, I like to use the water for stock, so I usually add some or all optional ingredients given above. Roughly chop them before adding to the pot.
   3. Put a lid onto the pan, and turn up the heat to bring it to a good boil. Once the pan is boiling, reduce the heat to a rolling simmer, and leave for an addtional 20 minutes.
   4. Turn off the heat but leave the pad on the hob. Quickly skim off any excess fat, and then cover the pan again. Leave for 20 minutes more.
   5. Finally remove the pan from the heat. Take the chicken out and drain it, before drying the chicken with kitchen paper, inside and out. Then, paint the chicken all over with the soy sauce, and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
   6. If you are using the stock, then you should skim any additional fat, and then drain using a muslin lined sieve. This is quite a light stock, but you can make it stronger by adding the chicken carcass when finished and boiling for another 20 minutes.