I like my fancy rice cooker with the added functions that make my life we easier, such as soup or congee function. There’s even a cake function which I tried once but failed so badly due to my laziness to measure the amount of flour to use.
There’s a recent rise in the popularity of simple one pot dishes, which I find extremely clever, seeing how busy our lives are. A simple one-dish wonder where all the staples and the nutrients are. The best part? Only one pot to wash. Absolutely perfect! Terribly awesome, until you realise how incredible it is with the rice cooker.
Other than the usual soups, I’ve cooked a variety of dishes using the rice cooker, such as Hokkien Fried Rice (鹹飯), mac&cheese and steamed carrot cake. So since I was craving for some claypot chicken rice that day, I decided to put my rice cooker to good use again.
This makes enough for 4.
Ingredients
- 3 cups of rice, washed
- 4 large chicken thighs (chopped into small pieces)
- 4 Chinese sausages / lup cheong / 臘腸, cut into 1cm cubes (3/4) + thinly sliced (1/4)
- 200g Shitake mushrooms, washed & thickly sliced
- 4 Bok Choy
Sauces
- Light soy sauce
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- chilli powder
Aromatics
- 10 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
- 1 finger of ginger, sliced thinly (2/3) + julienne (1/3)
- Shallots, chopped finely
Method
- Before I start, in this instance, I’ve bought de-boned thighs, removed the skin and fats, to make this a healthier dish. It is perfectly fine to leave the skin on and with bones too. The fats from the chicken will make the dish a bit more flavourful, but the oil from the sausages is good enough.
- Marinate the chicken with light soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil, proportions 2:1:1
- Sprinkle some chilli powder for additional kick. Entirely optional.
- Wash 3 cups of rice in the rice cooker’s inner pot till the water runs clear.
- Tip on how much water to add to the rice: Place your last finger in the pot so it is just resting on top of the rice, and fill water till a little lower than the first line.
- Fire up a skillet, fry up the ginger julienne, shallots and garlic until the aroma is released. Add to rice cooker.
- Add sliced ginger to rice cooker & give the mixture a quick stir.
- Add sliced shitake mushrooms, ensuring it’s evenly spread out.
- Start rice cooker in standard rice cooking mode.
- Add all the chicken pieces & cubed sausages to the skillet on medium-low heat.
- After 2 mins, flip meat. The chicken should get a little bit of charring on each side.
- Now this is the part that gets a bit tricky, as it really depends on your rice cooker. Mine beeps about 15 mins before the end. Generally the meat should go into the pot when the rice is about 80% cooked..
- Add the chicken and cubed sausages to the rice cooker & ensure it is evenly spread out.
- To get a crusty rice base, I restart the cooking when it is entirely done and let it go for another 15 mins. Add the sliced sausage at this point.
- Switch the rice cooker to keep warm mode & add the bok choy.
- Add dark soy sauce into the pot and mix well. The rice should be quite dark in colour.
- Enjoy!