Cantonese Claypot Chicken Rice

We used to have an eathern stove at home when I was young, fueled by charcoal that could be kept warm for hours, as the hardened chunks of ebony slowly wasted away to become a crumbly ivory, until all that’s left was a disintegrated heap of cinder and ash. But using it could be quite a hassle to use, especially to kickstart the burning. But me ain’t no boy scout, so it was usually my father who “did the honours” to get the fire started. Once started, it served for a myriad of purposes, i.e. toasting belachan (fermentted shrimp paste) to make sambal, maintaining a large pot of broth for steamboat refills, or simply transferring out the charcoal pieces from that stove into a longish rectangular metal trough which was used to prepare kueh belandah (nyonya egg rolls) for chinese new year . In fact, steamboats in the past where fueled by charcoal which were “preheated” using the earthern stove as well! While some of the uses of an earthen stove were somewhat ritualistic, others remained very practical, and for me, the most practical and personal favorite “use” of the earthern stove has to be cooking 煲仔鸡饭 Cantonese Claypot Chicken Rice !

Ingredients

5 chicken wings
1-2 lup cheong chinese sausages 腊肠
1 piece salted fish, about index finger length and preferably from ikan kurau (threadfin) 午鱼
6-8 dried chinese mushrooms 香菇
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 蚝油
1 tbsp dark soy sauce 酱油/老抽
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp pepper
3 cloves of garlic, minced
A small knob of ginger, sliced
2 tbsp of chinese cooking wine, e.g. yellow rice wine 料理黄酒 or shaoxing wine 绍兴酒
A dash of sesame oil 麻油/香油
1 heap tbsp cornstarch 玉蜀黍粉

Toppingand Garnish

2 tbsp of dark soya sauce 酱油 or dark caramel sauce 晒油
A stalk of spring onions, jullienned

Mise en Place

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”
Place lup cheong into a bowl of warm water. Soak for a couple of minutes. Make a lengthwise slit just on the surface just to slice open the membrane casing and not to cut the sasauge right through. . Pull the membrane along the length of the sausage to remove and discard. Slice the sausages diagonally. Set aside.
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.
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.

Source ;Click

BERITA LENGKAP DI HALAMAN BERIKUTNYA

Halaman Berikutnya

Subscribe to receive free email updates: