Claypot Chicken Rice

Claypot Chicken Rice (in a Le Creuset Ceramic pot)

I am so bloated I shouldn't be eating oily rice just before going to bed, but I had a craving for Claypot Chicken Rice. So at 8 in the evening I started preparing the dish and when I woke up this morning and weighed myself on the bathroom scale, I can assure you that I regretted it thoroughly. Still, it was good while it lasted.

We have been bitten very badly by mosquitoes so huge you can see them as they sucked you (yet do nothing about them). Modena is a mosquito hotspot because (I was told) it used to be a swamp (and those mosquitoes remembered it better than anyone else). And it's very hot here during Summer and very cold during Winter. Great for making balsamic vinegar, but a pain for your electricity and gas bills and anything you chance to leave outside. The security netting for my trampoline is rotten to almost nothing and Jocastore who sold it to me claimed now that its 2-year guaranty wouldn't cover it. Assholes.

Claypot Chicken Rice (feeds 3-4) :

3-4 boned upper Chicken thighs (chopped into smaller pieces)

2 Tbsp Chinese cooking wine

2 Tsp Hoisin sauce

2 Tsp light Soy Sauce

1 Tsp toasted Sesame Oil

ground Black Pepper

1 piece good-quality Salted fish (rinsed and sliced finely)

1 Chinese sausage (sliced)

5-6 Chinese mushrooms (soaked in hot water, squeezed dry, sliced into 2, soaking water reserved)

1 fresh Red Chilli (sliced)

1 Tbsp Oyster sauce

2 Tsp Sweet soy sauce

1 Tsp Dark soy sauce

1.5 cups Jasmine rice (rinsed and drained)

1 large piece fresh Ginger (julienned)

2 Garlic cloves (chopped)

2 Tsp toasted Sesame oil

2 Tbsp Peanut Oil

1.5 cups Chicken stock

Marinate the chicken in the wine, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil and black pepper.

Heat some peanut oil in a wok and fry the chilli, salted fish, Chinese sausage and mushrooms till fragrant.

Add the marinated chicken pieces and stir-fry till they are half cooked.

Pour in the oyster, sweet soy and dark soy sauces and coat the chicken with them. Pour in the reserved mushroom water. Cover the wok and simmer till the chicken is almost cooked though.

In another pan, heat up the sesame oil and fry the ginger and garlic in it till fragrant. Add the peanut oil and then the rice. Coat the rice grains thoroughly in the fragrant oil.

I have pre-heated my oven to 200°C for my Le Creuset ceramic pot.

Pour the rice into the pot and top it with the chicken, salted fish and mushrooms (sauce included). Pour the chicken stock over everything, cover the pot and bake it in the hot oven for 30 minutes.

The salted fish added a really nice touch to the rice though Hub dislikes it. I wonder how he could claim to like Thai or Singaporean cooking and not like salted fish or shrimp paste. I do not like fish sauce, but have learnt to incorporate it when I prepare dishes that use it. But everyone else liked the rice including MIL. Baby Girl and I scrapped out the slightly-burnt bits of rice when the pot was almost empty - we're the 2 fattest in the family so you know why.