Chinese Steamed Pork Rice

Name: Chinese Steamed Pork Rice
Yield: 4 Servings
Ingredients: Lean Pork or Pork neck: 300g; Hua Diao Wine: 2 tbsp; Soy sauce: 2 tbsp; Sesame Oil: 1 tbsp; White Pepper: Dash; Ginger Juice: 2 tsp; Fermented Black Bean: 5 pcs; Corn Starch: 2 tbsp; Dried Mushrooms: 4 pcs; Mushroom sauce: 1 tbsp; Sesame Oil: 1 tsp; Soy sauce: 1 tsp; White Pepper: dash; Japanese rice: 1.5 cups; Water: 1.5 cups; Sesame Oil: 2 tsp; Lap Cheong: 1/2; Carrot: 1/2; Coriander: 2 sprigs; Spring Onion: 2 sprigs; Fried Onion: 1 tbsp; Fresh cut chilli: 1

Quick, easy and tasty one dish meal. If you can cook rice, you can cook this.

1h25m
Serves 4
Easy

Ingredients

Pork Marinade
300g Lean Pork or Pork neck
2 tbsp Hua Diao Wine
to taste
2 tbsp Soy sauce
to taste
1 tbsp Sesame Oil
Black sesame
Dash White Pepper
to taste
2 tsp Ginger Juice
5 pcs Fermented Black Bean
rinsed, to taste
2 tbsp Corn Starch
Mushroom Marinade
4 pcs Dried Mushrooms
Soaked and cut to quarts
1 tbsp Mushroom sauce
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Soy sauce
dash White Pepper
to taste
Other Ingredients
1.5 cups Japanese rice
1.5 cups Water
2 tsp Sesame Oil
1/2 Lap Cheong
sliced and halved
1/2 Carrot
diced, optional
Garnish
2 sprigs Coriander
2 sprigs Spring Onion
1 tbsp Fried Onion
to taste
1 Fresh cut chilli
optional

Directions

This is a one dish meal that you sometimes find in Cantonese eateries. Mostly, they use chicken pieces with salted fish or salted egg yolk and maybe some lap cheong (Chinese dried sausages) or pork ribs with black beans. I am sharing a recipe of Chinese steamed pork rice but you can easily modify the recipe to remove the lap cheong, increase the black beans, remove the rice, etc.

This dish is basically like clay pot rice, but is steamed instead, so does not have “guo ba” or crispy bits of rice stuck to the claypot. Neither does it have the charcoal aroma. However, it is still as tasty and aromatic and if like me, you are not a major fan of the hard bits of rice in claypot, this is a great alternative.

I seldom come across this dish but recently read a review by IeatIshootIpost on this hawker that does some mean Cantonese dishes. I happened to be in the area and so decided to give it a try. As it was lunch on a rather warm day, we decided to try the steamed rice instead of the congee which was much raved about. The rice was good except it was a pity he used lower grade white rice, but I guess since it is a hawker environment and at $4, I cannot complain. We preferred the chicken with salted fish and lap cheong though I am not a big fan of big pieces of salted fish as I find it too salty but it does give a lovely fragrance. The pieces of lap cheong were also too chunky for me. Otherwise, the taste was great! The pork ribs with black beans was not as good. Try it if you can and let us know your thoughts.

But that got me thinking. This is such a neat one bowl meal! It cooks pretty quickly (under 30 min so long as your meat was marinated beforehand) Can I pack this for Ed’s meal at work? So I decided to give it a try few days later during a home dinner with my in-laws. I have an issue… Ed is not a fan of processed meats. Well, me neither but it takes us one year to finish a a small pack of 2 pcs of lap cheong, so considering I do not cook with this often, he will not die eating it once. I would consider using black beans, but it is rather high in salt and my MIL is on a low salt diet. So son has to give way to mother lah.

So you have a choice of using fermented black beans (the whole hard ones, and not the soft or paste ones) or salted fish, etc to impart a strong umami flavour to the dish. Or you can skip this. It is very much up to personal preference.

I decided to use pork slices instead of pork ribs as 1) I do not have the right type of ribs (spare ribs) at home, 2) I do have chicken thighs but I am not so keen to chop it to small pieces and it is so much easier to just eat the meat right? But again it is your choice. The marinade whether you use chicken or pork is pretty much same in my humble opinion.

In my case I used a mix of pork neck and pork loin meat to experiment. I was a little concerned that the pork loin will be too dry but my worries were unfounded. Just make sure you do not slice the pork too thinly so that it does not get too dry. I sliced them about 3mm thick. The corn starch probably also prevents the meats from drying. You can also consider minced pork patty or even pork belly (sinful!) if that is the part you love.

I have a confession. I did not measure the condiments when I cooked this dish. It is basically by experience but what I like to do when I marinade meats is to smell the marinade. If it smells right, I am done. It must be fragrant enough. Meaning I can smell the soya sauce, the wine and the sesame oil and it must smell a little like the expected final product. Thus the quantity stated is a reference.

Some people like to use cooked rice for this dish. I think it is possible especially if you want to make use of left over rice. However, I prefer to use uncooked rice and place the ingredients in and steam it together with the rice so that the rice is cooked in the marinade and the juices of the meat and is really flavourful. Think chicken rice. You do not use cooked rice right?

The thing about cooking the dish with uncooked rice is to reduce the water slightly so that the rice will not be too soggy after adding the marinade in the meats. I reduced the water by about 15-20% and make it up with the marinade. One way to make sure you have right amount of water is to add the marinade to your water measurement and measure it.

I used Japanese short grain rice, but you can use Jasmine or Basmati or even quinoa for this dish. Just make sure you use the right amounts of water. Whatever rice you use, do use good quality rice as it does affect the mouth feel and even smell of the dish.

For this meal, I had a dish of vegetables by the side. If you really want to have them all in a pot, I will suggest adding vegetables in the last 3-5 minutes of the cooking to avoid over cooking them. However, I prefer to eat them by the side so that you can have more vegetables.

I cooked this Chinese steamed pork rice using a steamer. You can also cook it using your rice cooker. You can cook single portions and can even have different flavours for different family members if you have enough bowls and steaming racks. Or you can cook one big pot for everyone. However, if you are cooking a big pot or rack for all, make sure your rice is not too deep and meat too little.

If you do not want to steam it with rice, this is a great dish to just steam without the rice too.

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Steps

1 Done 1h	Marinade pork Combine all ingredients in the pork marinade, adding the corn starch last. Stir to coat the pork slices evenly. Cover and refrigerate. If using a tupperware, give it a good shake before keeping it in the fridge. This helps to break up the black beans and let their flavours out.
2 Done 15-30m	Marinade mushrooms Soak the mushrooms till soft, trim the stems and cut them into quarts. Marinade the mushrooms with the ingredients listed. Stir to coat the mushrooms evenly. If the mushrooms are thick, you may want to marinade longer or cut them into smaller pieces.
3 Done	Prepare the rice Wash the rice and add the water required, less 15-20%. Top up the remaining water required with the pork marinade. Pour all over the rice.
4 Done	Combine the ingredients Layer the pork, mushrooms, lap cheong and carrots over the rice in a thin layer, making sure to mix up the ingredients all over the top. Add sesame oil, drizzling over the rice.
5 Done	Cook rice Cook rice as per usual cooking time.
6 Done	Garnish Garnish the rice with coriander, spring onions, fried onions and cut chilli if desired. Can also drizzle some dark soy sauce too if desired. Serve hot with blanched vegetables by the side.