I jump in late with my Chicken and mushroom hot pot rice or clay pot rice as traditionally they are cooked on a charcoal fire in a clay pot. I like this cooking as the chicken is usually silky smooth. I like to use chicken thighs are they are smoother than the breasts. (Personally, I like to leave the skin on, but you can get rid of them). For the mushrooms, I think personally I preferred to slice them. A chef suggested that it would be more delicious if leaving it as whole. The pork sausage is not a must if you couldn’t find them.
This recipe serves 4.
5-6 mushrooms were soaked with water an hour before cooking, I preserved the mushroom water for the rice cooking.
The 4 chicken thighs (deboned) was marinated at least half an hour before cooking with 2 tbsp of soy sauce, sugar, 2 tbsp of hua tiao rice wine, 1 tbsp of minced garlic, 1 tsp of minced ginger, 1 tbsp sesame oil, pepper and 1 tbsp of corn flour
Proportion of rice to water is about 1:1 with cold water on stove. To cook faster, you can soak the rice before hand for half an hour and use boiling water to cook (reduce water) I use the mushroom water, wine and a bit of sesame oil for cooking the rice.
I added the 2 Chinese pork sausage when water was nearly absorbed by the rice. (Actually in the pict, I added slightly too early, the end result of the sausage, the skin colour was a bit “washed” on the first photo, but not the case in the last photo, the second time.
When the water was almost absorbed, add the chicken and cook 10 minutes more. I add the soy sauce at the same time (soy sauce + wine + sesame oil), some people would prefer to add when the rice is ready to be eaten. I read from a professional that there is virtually no difference between the 2 case.
I tried 2 methods of cooking, the first time in a cast iron pot on the induction hob, you can see a nice crust formed in the bottom of the pot. Sublime if you love that.
For the second try, I have used a clay pot in the oven. Started from a cold oven and temperature raised to 180ºC/360ºF. While the cooking is nearly identical, no crust was formed unless I think you put the pot directly at the bottom of the oven.
Maybe one day, I will buy the authentic clay pot and try it on a BBQ fire.
