Pork & Dried shrimps One Pot rice 电饭锅猪肉虾米煲仔饭

 

Simple rice cooker one-pot meal

I bet many of you working moms would love to get your family meals prepared with ease when you have a rush and tight schedule, no? Shared here is an easy and simple one-pot meal perfect for a hassle-free midweek lunch or dinner. To me this recipe is a great option for a lazy weekend instead.

The name “One Pot” which literally means everything is mixed and cooked together in one pot and served as the only dish.

This recipe was adapted from Cantonese one-pot rice dish, originally made use glutinous rice cooked in a clay pot. We simplified the recipe by using normal rice cooker instead.

For the ingredients, we retained the usual Chinese pork sausages, pork slices and dried shrimps. However, you can twist the recipe by adding some greens to it to make it a balanced diet. Chopped long beans or French beans are good options. Carrots and mushrooms are also great choices.

I didn’t have them when I prepared the meal; I substituted with slices of tomatoes and lettuce to go with the rice instead.

 

Our family love to have soup to go with rice. To compliment with this one pot rice, we used to prepare simple miso soup or fish balls soup to serve together.

 

Pork & Dried shrimps One Pot rice Serve 4 Ingredients: 2 cups of Thailand Jasmine Rice   Water ( 1 :1.5 water ratio) (Much depend on the type of rice, some rice may absorb more water, rule of thumb is to use slightly less amount of water as compared normal plain rice. I usually don’t measure in cups; I use my palm as measurement, as long as the water level slightly over my knuckles) Pork belly, cut into small strips Dried shrimp, soak and wash Chinese Pork sausages (lup cheong), steam to cook and sliced thinly   Marinate Pork slices with: Light soy sauce (to your taste) Dark soy sauce (to your taste) You can use roast pork if you have it on hand.   Rice Seasoning: (to your taste) 2 cloves Garlic - peeled, chopped 1 tbsp. Light soy sauce 1 tsp. Dark soy sauce 1 tbsp. Oyster sauce 1 tbsp. Maggi chicken stock essence (optional)   Garnishing: 5 gloves small shallots peeled and cut into thin slices.   Method:       1.    Marinated the pork strips and dried shrimps and set aside for at least half an hour. 2.    Wash, soak (30 minutes) and drain uncooked white rice, add one tbsp. of Maggi chicken stock essence to the rice and set aside. 3.    Heat oil in wok, sauté the slices of shallots into golden brown and set aside. 4.    Leave some oil in the wok and add in dried shrimps and stir fry until it starts to dance before adding pork slices and continue to stir fry for 3- 4 minutes before dish up and set-aside. 5.    Add 1tbsp. oil in wok and sauté the chopped garlic until fragrant before pouring in the rice. 6.    Add in water and seasoning with dark and light soy sauces and oyster sauce; continue to stir-fry to mix for 5 minutes, taste test before dish up. 7.    Transfer the fried rice back to rice cooker and switch on cook button to let it cook in the rice cooker for about 15 minutes. 8.    After 15 minutes, open up the rice cooker cover and you will see the rice is boiling, time to add in the fried pork/shrimps mixtures and pork sausages, stir to mix before closing back the cover and let the rice continue to cook until rice cooker automatically turn to "Keep Warm" mode. 9.    Leave it there for another 5 to 10 minutes before dish up. 10. Garnish with sautéed shallots and serve hot.   电饭锅猪肉虾米煲仔饭 2 杯的泰国香米 （ 四人份） 水（米和水的比例：1：1.5 这个比例很重要，关系到饭的生熟程度!太烂不好吃，夹生则根本没法吃!) 2瓣大蒜 - 去皮，切碎 五花肉切成小条状，腌猪肉片30分钟用适量酱油，黑酱油。 可用烧肉代替。虾米洗净浸泡滤干，洗净的腊肠蒸熟切成薄片。 饭调料： 1汤匙。酱油 ：1茶匙。老抽酱油 ：1汤匙。蚝油，1汤匙。美极鸡精（可选） 摆盘： 5粒小葱头去皮，切成薄片。 用电饭煲做煲仔饭的制作方法步骤如下： 把肉调味（备用） 米洗好（最好用水浸泡30分钟），加入1汤匙。美极鸡精备用 在炒锅烧热油，爆香葱头成金黄色，备用。  在炒锅烧热油，爆香葱头成金黄色，备用。 留少许油,并加入虾米爆香，再把猪肉片倒进去继续翻炒3〜4分钟盛起备用。如果你想加豆角菜类，现在就可以加入，随着猪肉炒拌。  炒锅下油1汤匙，爆香蒜茸再把米倒进去翻炒几下，倒入清水与饭调味料继续翻炒均匀越5分钟口味测试盛起。 转移炒饭回电饭煲让它在电饭煲煮约15分钟。 将锅盖打开看一下，电饭煲里的水沸腾后马上放肉虾米，切好的腊肉搅匀，盖上盖子，继续煮，关跳起后，再焖5-10分钟，撒上炸葱头片即可食用。

Penang Nyonya Rice Dumpling 粽子

 

Look what we have here?

Bamboo leaves, glutinous rice, marinated pork belly ………

Ok, by looking at these ingredients, can you guess what we are going to prepare?

29th  May 2014 ( Thursday)

Yes, it is Rice Dumpling ( Bak Chang) 粽子!

Another 2 more days we are going to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival (Duan wu jie) 端午节 and following Chinese traditional custom, the main food to prepare for this day is "Zong Zi" (Rice dumpling).

I had introduced this traditional Penang Nyonya glutinous rice dumpling recipe before in this old blog post Bak Chang (Savoury Rice Dumpling) 咸肉粽子 back in 2010 when I still resided in Auckland, New Zealand.

Along with the recipe, I uploaded the video below, featuring our master Chef Auntie Lan showing the right way to wrap the rice dumpling. Recently, I was so pleased to find out that this video received very good response and already getting more than 34 thousand hits!

I notice more and more Chinese traditional recipes and food preparation skills seem to gradually get lost in the process of modernization. If we continue not making any effort to preserve them via the right channel/media, I doubt the young generations will get the chance to learn and inherit these skills/rituals to run down the generations. Or worst, they will be lost forever.

Good things are meant to be shared. Visual aid is always easier to facilitate learning. Hence,I really hope the following video will offer helpful guidance to those interested in learning to make Bak Chang ( Rice dumpling) !

 

We are still in preparation stage, soaking the bamboo leaves and glutinous rice overnight, will only start to make by tomorrow, will update again when the “end products” are ready this Saturday! Stay tune

Muah Chee ( Glutinous/Sticky Rice snack with Peanut) 花生芝麻糍粑

This year, August the 14th was my late mother-in-law’s 5th passing anniversary or jìrì (忌日) in Chinese. As usual Auntie Lan would remind hubby of this occasion. Every year, without fail Auntie Lan would prepare mother-in-law’s favourite dishes to serve as prayer offering. This year, instead of the usual Teo Chew Cai Kuih that she used to make, hubby asked her to make Muah Chee. I had posted this snack recipe back in 2010 before when I resided in Auckland, with the steaming method from Agnes Chang’s Hawkers’ Delights cook book. This time I would like to introduce another traditional method of making Muah Chee. Shared below is not just the way of making sticky rice dough for Muah Chee, also how to make fine powdery ground peanut.   Shown below were the offering dishes we made for late Mother-in- law. As usual, I was responsible for my signature Crispy Roasted Pork Belly. Hubby did an awesome job in food cutting and food presentation, didn’t he?
Crispy Roasted Pork Belly  

Happy Dragon Boat Festival - 端午节快乐

 端午时节粽子飘香

Today is the 5th day of the 5th month in Lunar calender, a significant day celebrated by the Chinese world wide (Duan wu jie) 端午节.

This traditional custom has long been practised annually for more than 2000 years in China, commemorating a famous patriotic poet Qu Yuan (340-278 BC). I am not going to elabroate the history, you can click here to read more about it.

I just wish to highlight the food that I'm going to introduce in relation to this festival. Yes, in general for almost every Chinese festival, it is usually accompanied by some sort of special food.

The special food for this special day is "Zong Zi" (Rice dumpling). I had introduced this rice dumpling before in 2010 - Bak Chang (Savoury Rice Dumpling) 咸肉粽子. Here, not only you get to have a very traditional glutinous rice dumpling recipe, you also get to watch the video on how to wrap rice dumpling.

Yesterday, Auntie Lan again demonstrated her cooking skill in the making of one of her signature dish - Rice dumpling. Since last Saturday, she had asked me to get the necessary ingredients ready. In fact, as long as a month ago she had started her preparation by making homemade salted duck eggs, to prepare one of the key ingredients - salted egg yolks.

Duck egg yolks - eggs soaked in saturated salt water for 30 days

After nearly a day of preparation and cooking, with 2kg of glutinous rice, Auntie Lan managed to make more than 40 rice dumplings.

When I came home from work yesterday, we had rice dumplings and rice porridge for dinner. With over 40 rice dumplings made, I reckon for the coming days, rice dumplings would be our main staple especially for my hubby who is crazy over rice dumplings!

Bak Chang (Savoury Rice Dumpling) 咸肉粽子

I just had another one for lunch today and the only word that I had to say was " Yummy!"

Key ingredients - Glutinous rice, salted egg yolk, peanuts, pork belly and mushroom

Clay Pot Chicken Rice 瓦煲鸡饭（电饭煲版）

Rice cooker - Clay Pot Chicken Rice?

Clay pot chicken rice is one of the well known hawker delights in Malaysia. We never expected to have this dish in the menu of our packed lunches during our Great Kiwi Road trip. However, with Auntie Ah Lan traveling with us, anything is possible. Among the packed lunches we had on the road were clay pot chicken rice, sandwiches, noodles and fried rice. Ming Ray commented this clay pot chicken rice was the best packed lunch he had on the road. He even requested me to add in to his school lunch box menu when school reopened!

You might wonder how to do that while we were traveling on the road with limited utensils? I did mention that I packed a few cooking utensils with us on this road trip, but clay pot? No, of course not!
The clay pot chicken rice we shared below is a modified version using our magic rice cooker again. That being the case, the title above was a bit misleading then. But do rest assured that the taste of the chicken rice does not differ much from the clay pot version. J

This dish is easy and convenient to prepare. It is a great meal when you are lazy to cook but still yearn for a decent meal. You can even skip the stir fried part and just dump everything raw into rice cooker and cook everything in one pot. I used to cook this way to save the hassle of cleaning extra pots and pans. But this method is not recommended by Auntie Ah Lan as she claimed the rice would be tastier and more aromatic following the stir frying preparation.

Hakka Rice Cooker Salt Baked Chicken 客家盐焗鸡

Asian Style Christmas Bird?

Few months ago my eldest brother sent me an email introducing the Salted Chicken which was a trademark of Hakka Cuisine. This dish reminded him of the salted steamed rice wine chicken (客家盐酒鸡) our mum used to cook for the Chinese New Year eve dinner when we were kids. Ever since our mum suffered from Alzheimer's and was admitted to a nursery care, we no longer had the chance to taste this dish. We missed that unique home brewed sweet rice wine flavored chicken. The sticky rice wine (自酿米酒) was home brewed by our mum. Her rice wine was popular among our relatives and friends for use in home cooking, especially well sought after in the Chinese after birth confinement diet。But it is sad I no longer have the chance to learn from my mother L

Seeing me getting interested in cooking and started off this food blog, my brother suggested me to learn up our Hakka cuisine and shared in this blog too. I reckoned this was a good idea and started to surf for related Hakka recipes, and then I came across this creative and modern way of making Hakka salted chicken.

The traditional Hakka cooking method used parchment paper to wrap up a whole chicken, then buried it in a wok full of fried coarse salt and simmered till it was cooked; very arduous. This one however requires only a rice cooker to do the magic. This lazy people way of salt baking may not show the true flavor of Hakka Salted Chicken but it is surely a simple and healthy way to cook a chicken without compromising much on the taste.

Because I had a small rice cooker, I could only cook size 9, chicken. Instead of the whole chicken you can also opt for parts such as drumsticks or wings. I had attempted using chicken, wings and drumsticks. They all tasted flavorsome and not greasy. I served this chicken with Hainanese chicken rice. Of course no chicken rice is complete without the special chicken rice chilies, isn't it? J

Hakka Salt Baked Chicken 客家盐焗鸡 - Featured in Group Recipes 30/12/2010

This year, we celebrated our Christmas at Hahei Camp site with limited utensil and a very basic kitchen; I had used this recipe to make our very own Asian style Christmas birds for our Christmas dinner. J

Bak Chang (Savoury Rice Dumpling) 咸肉粽子 - Featured in Group Recipes

I know now is not the right time to introduce glutinous rice dumpling, as Dumpling festival
(端午節) which traditionally is celebrated in June (fifth day of the fifth month on the Chinese lunar calendar) was long overdue. However, since we migrated to NZ we didn't have a chance to eat nice Malaysian made Bak Chang (in Hokkien) a.k.a. zhong Zhi粽子.

Even though we could get sticky rice dumplings here in Asian shops but they were mostly Mainland China flavoured, the taste was very much different from the Malaysian style savoury rice dumplings. Thanks to my Taiwanese classmate Lily and Linda, I got to taste Taiwanese flavour bak chang too. Nevertheless, we still missed Penang Nyonya bak chang, especially those made by Ray's auntie. Hubby loves her bak chang very much, he can wallop 4 sticky rice dumplings in one go!

With Chef Ah Lan around, of course Bak Chang was one of the long overdue order placed with herJ. Even though this was not rice dumplings time, we still managed to get the right ingredients to make them. I suppose this sticky rice dumpling has been blended in our daily meal and no longer served as seasonal meal.

Bak Chang (Savoury Rice Dumpling) 咸肉粽子- Featured for Dec 10th

To many, the making of Bak Chang is rated at difficult level, especially on the wrapping and tying parts. The wrapping method involves making 2 sheets of bamboo leaves into a cone shape, stuffing in the fillings and wrapped into pyramid shape and finally secured with hemp. It is really not as easy as it sounds. If any one of the steps isn't done properly, then the bak chang will slip open while being boiled. I had attempted to wrap 5 dumplings and had one fell out. L But as a beginner with passing rate of 80%, I reckoned it was not a bad start after all, wasn't it? I believe practice makes perfect, I hope gradually I will master it.

Below is the video clip showing the making process and the right technique of wrapping bak chang.

Mince Carrot Peanuts Porridge萝卜丝肉碎花生粥

Cooking porridge the easy way with rice cooker

I tend not to make much cooking during weekend. My weekend lunch menu mostly noodles. Lately, my boy seems to pick up his old baby eating habits longing for porridge. Ever since then my Saturday lunch menu began to swap to porridge and it has remained the same ever since winter season until now.

There are 2 major types of Chinese porridge or congee, one is Teochew "Muay" 稀饭and another type is Cantonese "Chok" 粥. Teochew style is quicker to cook and the texture is firmer more like rice in soup where the rice grains still pretty intact. Whereas Cantonese congee takes hours to cook until rice grains turn mushy. Our preference is Cantonese porridge but not so watery rather starchier, more like baby porridge very creamy.

Instead of using stove which taking hours to cook, I use to cook my porridge using rice cooker which is faster and hassle free. It is very convenient, where you just need to throw in all ingredients into the rice cooker and let it cooks by itself. Off cause it will be even better if you have pressure cooker, where you get to enjoy your "chok" in less than half an hour. I didn't bring mine over here so rice cooker is good enough to help me.

However, for peanuts porridge, I did take extra effort to boil the peanuts first before I transfer the peanut soup to rice cooker; this is because we prefer to eat softer peanuts in our porridge. This is also another nourishing herbal food that can help in clearing lungs and relief cough, not only that porridge is great as slimming diet too. Find out also how to recycle the water use for rinsing rice into natural facial cleanser and organic fertilizer. J

Mince Carrot Peanuts Porridge萝卜丝肉碎花生粥