CANTONESE CLAY POT CHICKEN RICE

This is the kind of food that the children love so much...rice cooked in a clay pot together with soy sauce chicken. Well if you need to prepare this at home you need a minimum two burner and at least 4-5 clay pot..It's a bit tedious and that is the reason why we prefer to have this at the food court..anyway for the sake of of learning to make one and you have a small family then it is worth to make it at home...You can make variations to your clay pot chicken rice..by adding some "bok choy" or even sausage, as for this Cantonese Clay Pot Chicken..the recipe calls for sausage..but I omitted that. So here's the recipe I adapted from AFC - TV program...it's yummy!!!

Cantonese Claypot Chicken Rice

5 chicken wings

1 piece salted fish, about index finger length and preferably from ikan kurau

6-8 dried chinese mushrooms

2  cups of rice, Jasmine or any long-grain variety

2 cups of chicken stock (I made this ad hoc with 2 tbsp of shallot oil, 1 cube of Knorr Chicken Bouillon and 2 cups of mushroom soaking water)

Marinade

2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp dark soy sauce 1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp pepper

3 cloves of garlic, minced

A small knob of ginger, sliced

A dash of sesame oil

1 heap tbsp cornstarch

Topping and Garnish

2 tbsp of dark soya

A stalk of spring onions, jullienned

Directions

Chop chicken wings along the joints into 3 pieces. Retain the drumlet and mid-wing section for marinating. The end tip can be set aside for soups.

Place drumlets and mid-wings into a mixing bowl and add all the ingredients under “marinade”. Give everything a good toss to ensure even coating and set aside for a couple of hours.Periodically give the chicken a quick stir.

Soak chinese mushrooms with water at room temperature. When the mushrooms have softened considerably, remove stalk and squeeze to remove as much soaking water as possible. Halve or quarter the mushrooms depending on size. Retain soaking water for “chicken stock”

Rinse salted fish to remove excess salt crystals on it. Dice into small pieces. Set aside

Rinse rice and set aside.

To prepare chicken stock, decant mushroom soaking water into a bowl. Add bouillon cube and sir to dissolve but don’t worry if it doesn’t completely. Add shallot oil. Stir and set aside.

Method

Add rice and chicken stock into claypot.

Turn on flame, bring mixture to a fast boil and lower flame to low, lid on and allow to simmer. Stir the mixture once in a while to make sure that the bouillon cube is well dissolved and incorporated.

When the rice is about half-cooked (appro. 5-7 min later), quickly but carefully lay the chicken pieces and ginger slices from the marinade over the rice, followed by salted fish, mushrooms and chinese sausages (optional)

Turn to the lowest flame possible and allow it to continue to simmer. By now, the smoky flavours would start to become apparent.

When the steaming through the vent on the lid has somewhat subsided. Remove lid and drizzle in half of the chicken wing marinade over the top. Cover with lid again rapidly. It would begin to produce more steam from the marinade.

When the steaming has once again subsided, turn off flame. Remove lid and check that the chicken pieces have just cooked through. If not, simply cover and let the claypot sit for another 5-7 min allowing the residual heat to cook everything through.

Just before serving, garnish with spring onions and a generous drizzling of dark soya sauce and give everything  a good toss.

Sajian ini memang menjadi kegemaran anak-anakkan...seperti makan nasi dengan ayam masak kicap cuma cara masaknya sahaja berlainan iaitu menggunakan periuk tanah. Saya beli dua biji periuk tanah ini cuma  teringin nak mencuba...memang rasanya kalau anak ramai tak berbaloi dibuatnya sebab kerjanya remeh dan memerlukan banyak periuk tanah dan dapur..tetapi kerana hendak mencuba saya buat juga..pakat kongsi makan. Tetapi kalau keluarga kecil rasanya berbaloilah buatnya tidak meletihkan. Menyediakan bahan adalah mudah tetapi memasaknya agak rumit sedikitlah...ialah kita kena mengadap nasi sehingga kering..pendek kata dalau hendak membuatnya..kerja lain kena letak sebelah..tak boleh nak disambil-sambil.Apa pun saya suka letakkan cendawan dan ikan kurau masin..hem memang montop....

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