Chinese Clay Pot Rice

Recipe by Spoonful Chinese Cooking Instructor Cai Li

This is a traditional Cantonese dish but now becoming popular throughout China. The rice is slowly cooked in a clay pot, giving the dish a distinctive flavor. It is typically served with Cantonese-style cured pork and vegetables.

A perfectly cooked clay pot rice has a great flavor of all the ingredients, with nicely crisped and scorched rice on the bottom of the pot.

Serves 4-6,

• 2 cups Thai Jasmine rice泰国香米
• 2 cups and 2 tablespoons plain water in room temperature
• 4 Cantonese-style sausage广式香肠
• 2 slices ginger姜片
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Sauce

• 4 tablespoons light soy sauce生抽
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce蚝油
• 1/2 teaspoon caster sugar 白糖
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil香油

Serving with
2 Bok Choy青菜
4 green onions, chopped (optional)

 Method

1. Rinse the rice carefully and then soak with clean water for around 15 minutes.
2. In the meantime, slice the sausage into thin slices.
3. Bring the pot to a boil, turn to the low-medium heat and continue to cook the rice for 2 to 3 minutes.
   
4. Remove the lid, add ginger slices firstly and then top with sausage slices. Drizzle oil over the edges. Cover the pot. Turn to low heat and cook the rice for 30 minutes.
5. In the meantime, blanch the bok choy in a pot of boiled water. Drain and set aside. Let’s also make the sauce. Get a clean bowl, add into all sauce ingredients. Mix well.

6. Remove the lid of the pot. Place onto the bok choy. Sprinkle all the sauce evenly over the top of the pot.

7. Use a big spoon to stir everything together to make sure all grains of rice are nicely coated with sauce. Do not miss those beautifully crisped rice on the bottom of the pot!

Cai Li Blakeman works for Spoonful as the Chinese Cooking instructor. Cai Li was born and raised in China and has lived in Beijing, Washington DC and Singapore. She received her culinary training at the Le Cordon Bleu in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2014.  She is also a food consultant and blogger. She shares easy recipes and stories on homemade Chinese and Asian food on the Facebook page #sentosadough and her blog of www.lets-playdough.com.

Prior to pursuing her passion for cooking and culinary education, she was a PR and Communications professional and had held management positions in global firms including United Technologies Corporation (UTC), NEC, Edelman, Johnson Controls and Kimberly-Clark.