Claypot Chicken Rice with Salted Fish

"Ham yu gai lap poo chai fun" is basically one dish, which is a member of the claypot rice family along side with Lap Mei Fun (Perserved meat rice). It is very interesting to note that cooking rice in a claypot over stove fire is so fast, something like less than 10 min. And claypot gives the whole dish a very nice flavour, somewhat more fragrant, I suppose.

And by the way, you can buy very nice cheap chinese claypots at the Super Discount Store near 3rd Mile Flyover. I bought three ~ big, medium & small for RM 5, 4, 3 respectively. As Greg would say in Hokkien "Pee kao lau sai" ~ Cheap until diarrhae. No point buying those RM20 over or RM50 claypot. These Chinese ones are super durable and of course if you break them, you don't have to cry. And they look pretty presentable too.

Serve 3-4
350 gm of fragrant rice
1/2 tbsp of garlic
1 teasp of salt
1 teasp of pepper
1 tbsp of dark soya sauce
3 tbsp of cooking oil
450 gm of water

1) Heat up wok with oil. Add garlic and stir fry till fragrant. Add rice and stir fry till rice feels a little sticky and heavy. Add soya, salt and pepper.

2) Dish out into a claypot and add water. With med-high fire, cook the rice with lid closed for about 8-10 min till rice is almost cooked and water is almost all gone. Rice will look very wet at this stage.

You can start to cook the rest of the ingredients before the rice so that the chicken can be well simmered.

450 - 500 gm of chicken meat, you can use thigh fillet and diced it up (hence, the gai lap), but i normally go the whole piece with bone attached. Just chop up into 7-8 pieces
1 tbsp of garlic
3-4 pieces of sliced ginger, shape of the thumb
1 tbsp of sesame oil + 1-2 tbsp of normal cooking oil
4-5 pieces of shitake mushrooms, soaked to soften and cut into halves
1 no of good quality chinese sausage (optional)*, sliced thinly
1 small piece of salted fish, size 2 cm square X 4 cm long, deep fried, cooled and chopped to fine pieces.

Marinade:
2 tbsp of oyster sauce
2 tbsp of dark soya or 1 light + 1 dark
2 tbsp of cooking hua tiaw wine
1 tbsp of sugar
3/4 teasp of salt and pepper each

3) Marinade chicken meat with marinade for more than one hour.

4) Heat up wok with oil and lightly stir fry sausages slices till fragrant. Dish out, set aside and using the same oil, stir fry ginger till fragrant. Add garlic and continue stir frying till garlic turn slightly brown. Add marinaded chicken. Stir fry till fragrant and let it simmer while rice is cooking in the claypot.

5) When rice is ready, spread sausage, fine salted fish pieces and chicken over rice. Close lid and cook at medium fire for another 5-7 minute. 5 min if you like the bottom and side only slightly burnt and crispy. Longer like 7-8 min if you like it more burnt. Edited: The burnt bits are nice and in Hong Kong after the rice is eaten, the restaurant can help you add water to the burnt bits and cook into porridge.

6) Remove from stove and serve.

* optional sausages: please buy good quality ones. Otherwise the taste may be weird. Mine I got from Hong Kong. Really fresh.