Claypot Rice With Mushroom and Chinese Sausage

I grew up in San Francisco, with easy access to a lot of delicious Chinese food.  Sometimes I wonder why there aren’t more specialty Chinese food restaurants like Chinese Porridge/Hong Kong breakfast style restaurants or Claypot rice restaurants??  I mean...the margin is HUGE! Anyway, I digress.

Cooking claypot rice can seem intimidating because you can run the risk of burning the rice, or undercooking the rice.  So, I think understanding the basics could be helpful.  

In addition to making sure the rice and protein is well cooked, you also want flavors.  So, as you come up with your recipe or preparing for your rice, think of ways you can add as many flavors as possible.  

In this recipe, you will need:

2 links of Chinese sausage

5 Shiitake Mushroom (although I would recommend using dehydrated shiitake, I actually used fresh mixed mushrooms*)

2 stems of spring onion

Bak Choy’

1 cup of long-grained rice

1 cup of water (preferably liquid from soaking your mushroom for 30 minutes+)

½ cup of sauce**

** ½ cup sauce = 

1 T oyster sauce

2 T Shaoxing wine

1 T dark soy sauce 

1 T light soy sauce

1 T mirin 

2 T chicken stock

Pre-work:

• Soak the mushrooms in 1 ½ cups of hot water for 30 minutes; once they are ready, let it cool before you thinly slice them up. Don’t forget to keep the liquid

• Rinse and soak your rice in cold water for 30 minutes

• Thinly-slice the Chinese sausages

• Slice up some green onions, separate the white part from the green part

How to cook the claypot rice:

1. Heat up your claypot with about a T of oil (I typically use either duck fat, bacon fat or simply olive oil), then add in the sliced up Chinese sausage together with the white part of the green onion. Cook it to render some of the fat (your goal is not to render out all the fat, as you will add it back to the half-cooked rice to render the juice and flavors into the rice.)

2.) Cook the sausage for roughly 3-4 minutes on medium heat.  Then set the sausage aside into a bowl. Keep the fat in the pot.

3.) Drain the rice first, then add the drained rice into the clay pot.  Turn the heat back up. Stir the rice enough to make sure each grain is coated with the Chines sausage yummyness.

4.) When you see a lot of steam is coming off the rice, add in the mushroom liquid. 

5.) Keep the heat on high until you see the water bubbles. Then turn it down to medium low.

6.) Put the clay pot lid back on and cook for 4-5 minutes.  

7.) Add the sauce into the rice, stir it to make sure it’s evenly coating the rice.  You do NOT have to turn the heat back up; keep it on medium low.

8.) Add the mushroom and Chinese sausage.

9.) Cook the rice for another 3 minutes.  Gently check the bottom of the rice to make sure it’s not burned.

Note: It’s OK if crust forms in the bottom of your pot, but it does mean it will burn if you keep the heat on longer than that.  As soon as you feel the crust, turn off the heat.

10.) Sprinkle the green part of the green onion.  If the rice is still a little hard, keep the pot lid on and let the steam cook the rice for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Add a little bit of sesame seed oil to finish or for serving