claypot chicken rice

Bee Yinn Low’s selected claypot chicken rice follows the Malaysian version she enjoys. Chicken thigh pieces, Chinese sausage and shiitake mushrooms cook above the rice, with a crisp layer developing at the bottom of the pot.

Soy and oyster sauces, salt, sugar, cornstarch, white pepper and selected Shaoxing wine form the chicken marinade with oil, sesame oil, ginger and scallions. Dried shiitake mushrooms soak separately before being squeezed, trimmed and sliced.

Washed long-grain white rice receives oil and boiling water in the claypot. Once part of the water is absorbed, the marinated chicken, sliced sausage and mushrooms are layered over the rice to finish cooking together.

A separate sauce mixes another portion of oyster sauce, soy and sugar. Near the end, a sizzling sound marks the developing rice crust; the sauce is drizzled over the contents after the heat is turned off.

Additional scallions garnish the finished pot. Low describes claypot rice served steaming hot in Malaysian and Singaporean hawker settings, and adapts her own preparation to a gas stove.