Feb 22, 2009
Hunger Management
Toasty comfort
Whip up excellent claypot rice at home with some tips on how much water to use and how to control the heat
By Tan Hsueh Yun
The weather is starting to heat up again and hot, humid days are coming. I can feel it in the beads of sweat on my brow.
But there is a little time left for lap mei fan, that Cantonese comfort dish of preserved meats and rice cooked in a claypot.
This is usually winter food, eaten when preserved sausages, duck and pork belly, air-dried by cold winds, are readily available.
Truth be told, I could eat it all year round just because it is so good.
Singapore makes preserved sausages and meats in factories that do not rely on cold winds for drying. Some of them are sold in supermarkets and they are all available year-round at the Victoria Street Wholesale Centre. Vendors there will open up tins of lup cheong and the other stuff if you ask.
But the star of the show is really the rice: plump, separate and fragrant from the oils that ooze out of the preserved meats.
The other important thing is that some of the rice must be crisp and crackly. This effect can only happen in a claypot. Toasty does not happen in a rice cooker unless something has gone terribly wrong.
The Chinese are not the only ones who like this sort of thing. The Spanish even have a name for it - soccarat, the crusty layer at the bottom of a pan of paella.
Until recently, I did not think the perfect claypot rice could be made at home. At least, I did not think I would be the one making it.
The only way, I thought, was to go to Geylang Clay Pot Rice in Lorong 33 Geylang and wait a long time for a taste - charcoal-fired, no less - of heaven.
And then I attended a cooking class on Chinese New Year foods by chef Yong Bing Ngen at Shermay's Cooking School in Chip Bee Gardens. The chef, who helms Majestic and Jing restaurants, taught three recipes: yusheng, the Chinese New Year stew called poon choy and claypot rice.
The first two were delicious but the rice was what fired my imagination. Those crackly bits were insanely good.
I learnt many things from chef Yong that day but the two most important ones were about water and steam.
Cooking rice in a rice cooker is a no-brainer. Measure it using the plastic cup that comes with the cooker, wash it and pour in water up to the appropriate levels, all helpfully marked on the side of the rice pot.
But how much water do you use when cooking rice in a claypot?
According to the chef, you simply use the same cup to measure both rice and water. So if it is three cups of rice, then it is three of water measured from the same cup.
The other lesson was on controlling the heat under the claypot by watching the steam coming out of it.
When the steam shoots up straight, the water has boiled and it is time to turn down the heat. While the rice is cooking, the steam should come up in wavy wisps occasionally.
As soon as I could, I tried out the recipe and invited my parents over for lunch. My mother even lent me her seasoned claypot.
In the kitchen, we laughed as we took turns on steam patrol, our stomachs rumbling as the rich, aromatic scent of the preserved meats filled the air.
I crossed my fingers after 25 minutes and lifted the lid of the claypot. So far so good.
While I sliced the meats, my mother tilted the pot over the flame to toast the rice.
Then we piled everything back in and hurried to the dining table, where the three of us wasted no time digging in.
Wow. Crackly rice grains. Perfectly seasoned rice. Luscious meats. Al dente kailan. We could not stop smiling. We had pulled it off.
Thank you, chef. Goodbye, Geylang. And, um, I am not returning that pot.
MAKE IT YOURSELF: CLAYPOT RICE
Adapted from chef Yong Bing Ngen
INGREDIENTS:
3 preserved pork sausages
3 preserved liver sausages
1 preserved duck leg, about 120g
100g preserved pork belly
460g rice
500ml water
¼ tsp salt
250g kailan
SAUCE:
1 Tbs Cheong Chan Karamel Masakan (from Sheng Siong supermarkets), or thick dark soya sauce
1 Tbs oyster sauce
¼ tsp sesame oil
2 Tbs hot water
METHOD:
1. Bring a medium pot of water to boil, add the preserved sausages, duck leg and pork belly. Let the water come back to the boil, remove the sausages and meats and set them aside.
2. If you do not have a kitchen scale, measure three cups of rice using the plastic cup that came with your rice cooker. Rinse well under running water, drain and add to a claypot. Using the same cup, measure three cups of water and add to the claypot. Add the salt. Arrange the preserved sausages and meats over the rice in one layer.
3. Cover the claypot and bring the contents to the boil over high heat. When steam comes shooting straight out of the pot, turn heat down to low immediately. Leave to cook for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not lift the lid at any time. Little drifts of steam will waft out of the pot now and again.
4. While the rice cooks, blanch the kailan in boiling, salted water. Run under tap water and leave to drain. In a small bowl, stir together the ingredients for the sauce (below) and set aside.
5. After 25 minutes, lift the lid on the claypot. The rice should look fairly dry. If it does not, cook for another 3 to 5 minutes. Remove the sausages and meats with a pair of tongs, set aside.
6. Increase heat to medium-low. Using oven mitts on the handles, tilt the pot on the stove to toast the rice. Tilt it top and bottom, left and right, holding the pot tilted for at least 1 minute on each side. Sit it back on the stove again, return heat to the lowest it can go.
7. Working quickly, slice the sausages on the diagonal. Slice the rind and first layer of fat off the pork belly, then slice the meat into thin strips cross-wise. Slice off large chunks of meat from the duck leg, then slice the chunks into very thin strips.
8. Arrange the sausages, meats and kailan on top of the rice. Serve with sauce on the side to drizzle over the rice.
Serves four to six.
No comments:
Post a Comment