Yee Olde Newberry Family Cookery Book

'White-cooking' is a term used to describe food, usually a whole chicken, poached in a simple stock of Chinese rice wine and aromatics. It's a brilliant and really simple way of subtly flavouring the meat as well as keeping it tender.

The key to success for this technique is all in the temperature of the chicken when it goes into the just-boiled water: it needs to be out of the fridge, at room temperature, for 30 minutes. If it's too cold when it goes in, it will not properly cook.

Getting ahead: Ideally, the peanut rayu should be made a day ahead of serving for the flavours to infuse. If you need to make it on the day that's okay: even a couple of hours will help. It keeps for up to 2 weeks in the fridge and is great spooned over all sorts of things: crispy fried eggs, noodles, plain rice, sticks of celery.

4 small chicken breast fillets (600g)
20 ml Shaoxing wine
10 g ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 tsp peanut oil
1 large Chinese (aka napa or wombok) cabbage, thinly sliced (400g)
20 g basil leaves, torn
4 spring onions, finely sliced on the diagonal (60g)
1–2 limes, cut into wedges, to serve
salt

Peanut Rayu

250 ml peanut (or other flavourless) oil
20 g chilli flakes (Korean gochugaru, ideally, or an equal mix of regular chilli flakes and red pepper flakes)
100 g roasted peanuts, roughly chopped in a food processor
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
4 tbsp sesame seeds (35g)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp flaked sea salt

To make the rayu, put the oil and chilli flakes into a small pan and place on a medium-low heat. When the oil starts simmering, add the peanuts, garlic and sesame seeds, cook for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat. Add the soy sauce, sugar and flaked sea salt and set aside to cool, then decant into a sealed jar.

Half an hour before you are going to start cooking the chicken, remove it from the fridge.

When you are nearly ready to cook, fill a large pot (for which you have a tight-fitting lid) with 1½ litres of water. Bring to the boil on a medium-high heat and, when it begins to boil, add the chicken breasts, stir quickly, then immediately put the lid on and turn off the heat. Allow it to sit, undisturbed, for 1 hour, then strain the chicken, discarding the poaching liquid.

When cool enough to handle, tear the chicken into long shreds – discarding the skin first – and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the Shaoxing wine, ginger, peanut oil and ½ teaspoon of salt and set aside for at least 5 minutes. Just before serving, add the cabbage leaves, most of the basil and toss to combine. Transfer to a large serving plate and spoon over the rayu. Finish with the spring onions and the remaining basil and serve with the lime wedges alongside.