Claypot Chicken Rice

People tend to ask me if I have cravings for anything when I'm preggy.

My usual response is, "Not really. I did have crazy cravings in my 1st trimester but that seemed to have died down in my 2nd trimester."

However, this doesn't stop me from thinking about what I would like to cook to satisfy my growling / growing belly. And usually my mind wanders back to whatever I used to have at home in Singapore.

So, I decided to try out Claypot rice, which is a very popular local delicacy in Singapore. The traditional claypot rice is cooked with a claypot over open fire. However, since I neither have a claypot nor a fire stove, I had to modify the recipe instead.

It was scrumplicious!

 Marinating the meat and preparing the ingredients 

The final product! Loveeeed it!!! It smelled sooo good and tasted sooo authentic! The "burnt" parts of the rice, chewy texture of the Chinese mushrooms and smell of chinese sausages totally made me salivate with hunger!

 

Pris' recipe adapted from the original recipe here.

Ingredients:

- 2.5 cups rice (good for 6 servings)

- 250 grams chicken breast & 4 chicken drumsticks

- 4 spring onions (chopped)

- Ginger (sliced)

- 8 Chinese mushrooms (soaked in water for 30 mins and cut into quarters)

- 3 Chinese sausages (sliced)

- Chinese vegetables (Baby Bok Choy)

Marinate for chicken:

- 4 tbsp oyster sauce

- 2 tbsp soya sauce

- 1/2 tsp chicken boullion powder

- 1 tsp corn starch

- 1 tsp sesame oil

- Some black pepper

- 1/2 tsp sugar

- 1 tbsp white wine / Chinese wine

Seasoning for rice:

- 2 tbsp light soya sauce

- 1 tbsp dark soya sauce

- 2 tsp oil

- 1 pinch of salt

1. Remove the meat from the drumsticks and cut into pieces. Do the same with the chicken breast. 

2. Season the chicken meat with the chicken marinate overnight in the fridge for a stronger taste.

3. Cook the rice in the rice cooker together with the rice seasoning.

4. Heat some cooking oil in the wok. Add in the ginger and fry till fragant. Add in the chicken and stir-fry, followed by the spring onions. 

5. Add in the rest of the ingredients (except the vegetables) and fry until cooked. 

6. Mix the cooked rice with the rest of the ingredients in the wok. Place the Chinese vegetables on top of the rice. 

7. Cover the wok, so that the vegetables wilt in the steam. Let the rice cook for about 5-10 mins on the stove at high heat so that the bottom of the rice burns a bit but not too much.

Pris' Notes:

- The original recipe calls for salted fish but I have never been a fan of salted fish claypot rice and hubby wouldn't be entirely blown away by the taste of something preserved in the food. 

- The original recipe used the rice cooker to cook the meal but I made the amendments because my rice cooker isn't fantastic and doesn't have the "keep warm" function. Besides a rice cooker cannot "burn" your rice to give you the authentic "claypot" feel.