Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Which Asian doesn’t like rice? I love rice of any sort - Yang Zhou Fried Rice, Japanese Bento Boxes, Nasi Lemak (Coconut rice) and plain steamed white rice served with a simple dish.

A few years back, I was in Sydney for two weeks and stayed with a friend who preferred to cook pasta cos it’s easier. Her claim was that for a Chinese meal, you typically cook rice, a meat dish, a vegetable dish, and sometimes soup. You will end up with piles of dishes to wash and it’s just too tiring. After I was with her for only two days, I begged her to cook rice and a simple dish, cos I was simply thinking of rice the whole day!

This was exactly the same feeling I got when I returned from Cancun earlier last week. The moment we reached home, which was already about 9pm, I cooked rice and opened up a can of squid. Call me crazy, but the plain steamed rice tasted so delicious!

For this Claypot Chicken Rice recipe, I had help from Asian Home Gourmet’s Cantonese Claypot Rice paste.

Ingredients (serves 4):

- 2 cups rice (Thai Jasmine Rice preferred)
- 1 Chinese sausage
- 1 cup dried and sliced, shitake mushroom
- 1 large chicken leg quarter
- 1/2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/2 tsp minced ginger
- Salt and pepper

Cooking Method:

1. Wash and cook rice.

2. While rice is cooking, cut Chinese sausage on the bias into thin slices, soak dried mushrooms in warm water (you can also use fresh ones and the amount o use depends on how much you like the taste of shitake mushrooms. They have a strong smell.)

3. Debone chicken leg quarter and cut into bite sized pieces then season with salt and pepper. Drain the water from the mushrooms.

4. Heat up 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a wok. Medium heat.

5. When oil is hot enough, add garlic and ginger and stir fry for a while. Add chicken pieces and stir fry until they change color, then add Chinese sausage and mushrooms and mix well.

6. The rice should be cooked by now (takes about 20 minutes). After the rice has sat for about 5 minutes, transfer the rice to the wok. Add Asian Home Gourmet Cantonese Claypot Rice paste. Mix rice and paste well with the rest of the cooked ingredients.

7. Cover the wok and let the rice and ingredients sit for about 10-15 minutes. This is to let the flavor of the ingredients, rice and paste infuse into each other.

Chinese sausage is a must for claypot rice! It is very tasty, but take care not to add too much as it is salty. The mushrooms add texture to the rice and of course, what is chicken claypot rice without chicken! You can do without the claypot, but definitely not the chicken!

Enjoy!