"Claypot" Chicken Rice

I am very sure many of you love claypot chicken rice. There are a few places in Singapore that do awesome claypot rice and my favourite is the one at Geylang Lorong 33. But on days when I have craving for this dish but do not want to travel all the way to Geylang, I would cook this one-pot-meal at home.

While the traditional claypot-over-stove method gets the heat source only from the bottom, I chose to cook the traditional chicken claypot rice in a cast iron pot in the oven. The cast iron pot provides uniform and enormous heat in the enclosed space, allowing the chicken and other ingredients to absorb the heat much better during the cooking process. For this claypot rice recipe, I am using the Le Creuset Marmite. The Marmite has sloped sides that eliminates sharp corners, this makes stirring and tossing more efficient and effective.

There are many "cheat" claypot rice recipes out there that cook the rice and chicken separately and mix them in the final stage. I prefer the authentic method of cooking everything in the same pot together - the grease, juice and marinade form the chicken and sausages dripping and flowing down to flavour the plain rice below. Oh so so good! Thinking of it makes me drool!

Ingredients (Serves 4-6)

• 4 cups long grain rice (Rinsed and drained)
• 4 chicken legs (Rinsed, deboned and cut each leg into 4 pieces)
• 1 Chinese sausage (skinned and sliced thinly)
• 1 Chinese liver sausage (skinned and sliced thinly)
• 10 dried mushroom (soaked until very soft)
• 2-3 slices Mui Heong (Salted Threadfin)
• 1 bunch Chinese green (Chye Sim or Bak Choy)
• 2 tbsp shallot oil or lard
• 2-4 tbsp good quality dark soy sauce

Marinade for chicken

• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (Hua Diao)
• 3 slices ginger (cut into julienne)
• 1 tsp corn starch

Method

Marinate chicken with all marinade for at least 30 minutes.

Heat up oven to 200C.

Add 3.5 cups water to rice in the Le Creuset cast iron pot. Cover and cook rice over medium heat until half cooked (about 7 minutes).

Add shallot oil into rice and give it a good stir.

Spread evenly the marinated chicken, sausages, mushroom and salted fish on top of the rice. Cover with lid and put cast iron pot into the oven. Cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch green vegetables in boiling water. Drained and put aside.

Remove lid and continue cooking in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Remove pot from oven and drizzle thick dark soya sauce generously over and give everything a good stir. Serve immediately with the green vegetable.

** I prefer to separate the chicken and other ingredients from the rice, placing them on plates, before tossing just the rice with the thick dark soya sauce.