A dish cooked in a claypot should be served only if it can be served piping hot.
Given a desperate lack of time spent at home, I’ve decided to take the easy way out, thence the ‘microwavable claypot rice’.
Ingredients:
- Chicken drumstick: 4, chopped into bite-sized chunks
- Sesame oil: 2 tsp
- Sweet soy sauce: 2 tbsp
- Oyster sauce: 2 tbsp
- Light soy sauce: 1 tbsp
- White pepper: to taste
- Shaoxing wine: 2 tbsp
- Rice: 1 cup, washed and rinsed
- Water: a little less than 1.5 cups
- Chinese sausage: 2 sticks, skin removed, sliced
- Chinese mushroom: 4, soaked in water, halved
- Chinese parsley: 1 stalk, washed and chopped
- Kai Lan: 2 stalks, washed and chopped
Method:
- Marinate the chicken pieces with sesame oil, all the sauces, pepper and wine. Leave to marinate for 2 hours.
- Cook the rice with water in microwave on high for 10 min till boiling.
- Add chicken, sausages, mushrooms and remaining sauces used for marination into rice.
- Add 1/2 of chopped parsley into rice. Leave in microwave to cook for 10min.
- Add Kai Lan when the dish is almost done. Leave to microwave for another 3min.
- Garnish with remaining parsley. Serve hot.
Tricks:
- Use a microwavable ceramic bowl to achieve the crispy charcoal-burnt rice at the sides of the bowl.
- Add ready-made fried shallots for added crisp in every bite of the rice.
- Do not use the same amount of water as you normally do for cooking white rice, or else it will become claypot porridge. Reduce the amount by about 1/5 cup.
Serving:
2 persons