I haven’t been keeping up with my Scrumptious Weekend posts have I? It’s partly to do with a change in approach and time at my end, but also because I haven’t had very note-worthy scrumptious eats lately. I do share a lot of them on Instagram as some of you would have undoubtedly noticed 😀
However, I cooked something tummy warming and nostalgic this week and posted it on Instagram, and it generated some interest among some of you who wanted to know how I made it, so I thought I’d quickly share how I did it. It’s far too difficult to type on the phone or to summarize it all into 140 characters 😛
What I made was long bean savoury rice, a homecooked favourite and a one pot wonder that tastes even better the next day after being heated up in a pan and topped with a fried egg! 😀
Here’s a quick recipe how I did did it, based on how my Mom and late granny used to cook it 🙂
You need:
- Meat (I use belly pork sliced into chewy pieces or you can also use chicken, chopped up small)
- Dried shrimp – a handful, rinsed
- Long beans – or any green beans or harder vegetable you have on hand
- Dried shiitake mushroom (optional)
- Dried oysters (optional but gives a wonderful smokey flavour)
- Garlic
- Shallots
- Oyster sauce to taste
- Light and dark soy sauce to taste
- Dash of pepper to taste
- Rice, washed and drained
- Stock or water
Preparation:
- Marinade your meat with oyster sauce, light soy sauce and pepper. Leave aside for a few minutes
- If using, soak your dried shiitake mushrooms and dried oysters to soften and slice them up thickly
- Wash and soak the dried shrimp and then drain
- Chop up the garlic and slice the shallots thinly
- Wash and cut up the long beans into chunks
- Wash your rice and measure out the water as you normally do for cooking in a rice cooker. Then, drain the water into a bowl and set it aside
How to cook this:
- Heat wok with some oil and fry the drained dried shrimp until fragrant. Set aside.
- In the remaining oil, fry the garlic and shallots until fragrant and shallots are slightly brown. Stir often so they don’t burn.
- Add in marinated meat and stir fry until browned but not cooked through. You’ll be cooking this in the rice pot later.
- If using, add the drained dried oysters and dried mushrooms at this point and stir-fry.
- Add back the fried dried shrimp and the cut beans.
- Stir to mix and add seasoning if necessary – soy sauce, and dark sauce for colour.
- Add the washed rice and stir to mix everything evenly. Taste to ensure you have your seasoning right.
- Dish into your rice cooker.
- Add the water you measured out earlier for cooking the rice, or stock, ensuring that you cover the surface of the mixture
- Set rice cooker to cook and enjoy when it’s done!
- Serve with a fried egg, keep the yolk soft or I love it with some home made sambal as well
I like to keep the yolk of my fried egg just right and runny so it breaks up and mixes up with the rice for a yummy mix 😀 Also, expect that people will take second or even third helpings of this so make sure you cook up a lot extra! I like to cook up a big pot, then keep the remainder for quick meals throughout the week or even for a packed lunch at work.
It actually tastes even better after being quickly fried up to heat the following day 🙂
Note: I don’t provide exact measurements or quantities because I’m not very good at it. I operate on a guesstimate style of cooking, where I go by feel and taste rather than using exact measurements. For this dish, the more ingredients you put in, the more flavoursome it will be so be generous!
If you don’t have a rice cooker, you could also cook this in your wok or pot but you have to be careful with your water measurement so it doesn’t get too wet. It is therefore quite important to measure out your water beforehand based on the amount of water you usually use to cook your rice. I operate on the finger test i.e. height of rice = height of water measured with my fingers 😛 It’s not an exact science, but it works incredibly well.
Have you tried cooking this? Do you remember eating this at home?
If you do try this, do let me know how it goes for you. For many of us, this probably brings back some nostalgic reminders of home cooked meals and the family sitting around the dining table, feasting on this quick one pot wonder 😀
Paris B
Scrumptious Weekend: One day of the week where I indulge in my other love – Food! It will feature my cooking experiments or eating and travel adventures. Yes, I will travel for good food and I’m always experimenting in the kitchen.
It looks delicious! I like your style of guesstimation cooking. And the finger test is how I’ve been taught to measure the water for cooking rice too!
Thank you Mei Ling and I think many of us who learned to cook rice from our mothers will know this finger method of measuring water for cooking rice right? 😀 I can’t do it any other way!
Yum…this reminds me of claypot rice but the ‘at home’ style! I’ve made something similar minus the dried shrimps and shitake mushrooms…only because I don’t have them handy in my pantry. Might make your version. So quick and easy!
Ooh yes you’re right, it’s very similar to the claypot rice without the clay pot! 😀 In fact I’m planning to try cooking claypot rice – it looks easy. Or rather the stalls make it look easy 😛
Yummy! Even just looking at the photos, they warm my heart and makes my tummy growl 🙂 My mum usually makes this pot of rice goodness when she can’t think of the dishes to cook for dinner. Sometimes she throws in chicken and waxed sausages, sometimes she innovates and puts pork, leek, dried shrimp and mushroom. Definitely comfort food and yums! Oh yes, the rice always taste better the next day especially when packed for lunch in the cold office. Add some cili padi with soya sauce, that’s the bomb! Mum said it will taste even nicer and more fragrant if the rice is “saute” with onion and garlic before cooking in the rice cooker pot. The bigger the rice cooker pot, the better it will be as the rice will cook better. Haha, sadly I know eat but cooking is light years away!
Good for you to master this rice dish! Thumbs up 🙂
Teehee I’m the same as your Mom. It’s a no brainer dish because you get everything in one pot 😀 I love how you can mess about and add anything there is in the fridge to this dish because it’s just so easy and actually you’re also right about the bigger cooking pot. Mine is small and I always feel like my rice never tastes as good as my Mom’s which is cooked in a bigger pot. Or maybe it’s just her skills eh? 😀
Oh yum! Gotta say we have something similar at home (of course), but definitely not exactly the same! I don’t think I’ve had it with pork belly or dried oyster!
I think this a quintessentially Asian dish – a marvellous delicious one pot wonder that you can use anything to cook and just tastes better the more ingredients there are in there hehe….
This looks so yummy!
It is! It’s like a risotto… sorta 😀
Hey this is my home favourite too! My mum loves to add in yam (marinated with some five spice powder before you throw into the pot) for extra comfort. Heeeheee
Yes I do agree with you. Next day tastes even better. We usually call it “giam berng”, for salty/savoury rice. I so have to make this very soon!! 🙂 thanks for the post. Always feel nostalgic when I see your food posts. 🙂
Mmmm I like yam included too but I never know how to buy yam! If you get it wrong, it tastes awful and hard and I get itchy from the fine hairs that coat it too Eeks! So I’ve never tried cooking with yam but one day I should learn. And yes, we call it giam perng too (Hokkien lang unite! LOL!) I think I”m a very old school cook – I like making these “traditional” homecooked meals mainly because I sometimes miss them the way my late granny used to make them. Funny how you never appreciate them when young 😛
Ever since your post on this, I have been craving it. Since last week, I have almost all ingredient except long beans (WHAAA??!??) and yam. Today I bought long beans but no yam available. OH well… will have to do without! Tomorrow I’m cooking it! 😀
HAHAHHA Ting you totally cracked me up – I hope you’ve gotten all your ingredients and made this by now 😀 Yummy!
Hello Paris! I’m happy to report that yes I made it last week, and it was yummy – even more when heated up next day. 🙂 I actually called my mum to ask her if I have to marinade the pork first. She gave me a new tip: to add a small handful of sticky rice grains (you don’t have to soak them before). You can’t really tell presence of sticky rice when the whole pot was cooked. Mum told me to use 1 cup rice per 1 cup water ratio. I find that it’s too hard. I need more water next time. 🙂
Mmm your mom’s tip sounds good! Probably makes the rice less wet coz pulut uses more water to cook I think. My tummy just growled 😛
I have never had this dish before, but it seems absolutely delicious. I love all kinds of savoury rice, and will have to try this soon. 🙂
Do let me know if you do try it. It’s super easy to make and so good, you’d have second (or maybe third!) helpings! 😀
Omnomnomnomnom! I have a lazy version to this (yes, master of sloth that I am). Similar to yours but I don’t stir fry ANYTHING beforehand. I’d marinade the meats overnight and I’d pop the meat into the rice cooker the moment I get home from work. Because you’d get extra liquid from the meat as it cooks, I cut down the amount of water in the rice cooker. Like you, I’ve perfected the recipe from guesstimating over the years. I steam/blanch some greens and that is one hearty and healthy meal! Oh, I add a little bit of sesame oil too.
Protip: When soaking the mushrooms, add a little bit of sugar into the water for extra flavour (mum’s tip)
Protip 2: I make my shallots without stirfrying. Slice thinly as you normally would. Add oil and shallots in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel. Zap in microwave for 10s. Remove, stir. Repeat until desired results is achieved.
You can find these protips (and more!) from mum’s cooking blog. (Do I sound like an tv ad or what?) But wait, if you click now…sorry, you don’t get jack for clicking now 😀
I love your Mom’s blog! Can’t wait to experiment with her dishes 😀 And thanks for the quick cheat version too 😀 I like doing that with chicken for my version of one pot “chicken rice”. Comes out smelling and tasting like claypot rice – yummy! 😀
ooooohhh yes my mum also add sugar when soaking mushroom!! And she would frown at soaking them with hot water. Patience is the key, right? 🙂 On a different topic, she also taught me that, when freezing prawns (with or without shells), put them in some water and sugar. It’s supposed to make the prawns bouncy (???)… Have you ever tried this before?
I am intrigued… please could you share your mum’s blog here? 🙂 Thank you in advance!
Let me help you http://mykitchendelights.wordpress.com/ I’m waiting to try some of the traditional dishes in there and I love how there’s a one stop place for me to find all the lovely traditional home cooked food that I love! 😀
Looks yummy! This is something similar with one of my mom’s cooking too.
The ingredients are almost the same except the dried oysters.
We used to add in some chopped Chinese Style Sausages. It taste good too!
It was, Shan 🙂 I think many of us would have grown up with something similar with slight variations. I never really took to the taste of Chinese Sausages which is why I don’t add them but it’s a nice fragrant addition! 😀
I have a version of this that I whip up for my girls and hubby on weekends. They love it too and the runny yolk mixed with the rice – classic!!
Yes! I think every Asian household will have it’s own similar recipe 😀 It’s just such a time saver and a great way to use up bits and bobs from the fridge 😀