Since my earliest attempts to recreate the claypot effect in a rice cooker, and then I tried to cook lor mai gai in the IP (and even bought an IP suitable pot to do so), I could never get the texture of the rice just right or get the chicken correctly cooked (neither over nor under cooked). My suspicion was that the water and oil content exuded from the chicken is a wildcard that is very hard to accurately gauge.
After reading and trying out this method for glutinous rice where the key lay in NOT overly soaking the rice, I decided to try again but this time in a proper upscaled rice cooker. I realised that most recipes that required soaking glutinous rice for 4 hours or even overnight was because they wanted to steam the rice. In a rice cooker, it's immersed in water and boiling in water, so the glutinous rice can easily turn to mush.
I decided not to include in too many elements and ditched the chicken, just working with lap cheong and mushrooms for flavouring. In addition, my rice cooker has a special pot which apparently can re-create the burnt bottom of a clay pot. It was either the Claypot setting or the Firewood setting and I decided to try the latter setting. Success!
Ingredients
2 cups of glutinous rice, soaked for 1 hour only
About a handful of dried shitake mushrooms, soaked
2 tbsp of shrimp skins
1 Chinese rice bowl of water (not all will be used)
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp dark soya sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp Chinese rose wine (to give it a special flavour that goes well with pork)
4 links of lap cheong, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 stalk of spring onion
2 eggs, beaten
Pinch of salt
1 tsp sesame oil for garnishing
Method
1. Wash and soak the glutinous rice for 1 hour. At the same time, soak the dried mushrooms in the 1 bowl of water.
2. Prepare the marinade, mixing the soya sauces, sugar, and oyster sauce.
3. Once the mushrooms have softened, remove the stalks and slice if too large. Reserve the soaking water
4. In the rice cooker, drain and add the rice, For 2 cups of rice, use 1⅓ C of mushroom soaking water. If there isn't enough liquid, top up with water.
5. Pour in the marinade and mix well. Set to the Claypot function.
6. After around 5 minutes, place the mushroom slices on top of the rice. Do not mix.
7. Meanwhile, in a pan or wok, fry the lap cheong lightly until the oil comes out.
8. Add the whites of the spring onion, minced garlic, and shrimp skins. Briefly fry until aromatic.
9. Pour the panfried lapcheong etc into the pot on top of the mushrooms. Do not mix or disturb the rice but layer evenly on top. Top up with enough water to just cover the rice (the toppings need not be immersed in water). Leave to cook.
10. Meanwhile, make an omelette with the eggs. Allow to cool then slice into ribbons and set aside.
11. Once the rice is cook, use the Stay Warm function and allow to rest for another 10 minutes.
12. Mix and garnish with the greens of the spring onion, drizzle on sesame seed oil, and top with omelette ribbons. Serve immediately.
Recipe feedback
- Success! The Claypot function worked beautifully and I even had a burnt bottom!
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