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"Claypot" Chicken Rice

Recipe by Connie Veneracion
For better flavor, the chicken was marinated for six hours prior to cooking.
For better texture, the chicken was browned before it was arranged over the rice.
Chinese broccoli or mustard leaves may be used instead of bok choy.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Marinating /steeping time 6 hours
Total Time 7 hours
Course Main Course
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 4 people
A serving of "claypot" chicken rice

Ingredients
  

Chicken

Toppings

  • 8 dried shiitake
  • 2 Chinese sausages
  • 4 bunches bok choy

Rice

  • 1 ½ cups medium-grain rice
  • 1 cup chicken broth unsalted
  • 1 cup mushroom soaking water

To brown the chicken and make the sauce

Instructions
 

Marinate the chicken

  • Wipe the chicken dry with paper towels.
  • Place the chicken in a bowl, add the rice wine, salt, five-spice powder and ginger, and mix well.
  • Cover the bowl and marinate the chicken in the fridge for six hours.

Prep the toppings

  • Soak the dried mushrooms in warm water, drain, cut off the stems and discard. If the mushrooms are large, you may cut them into halves.
  • Slice the Chinese sausages.
  • Cut each bunch of bok choy into halves vertically and rinse to remove and silt trapped between the stalks.

Parboil the rice

  • Spread the rice on the bottom of a wide thick-bottomed pan.
  • Pour in the chicken broth and mushroom soaking water.
  • Cover and cook the rice just until the liquids have been absorbed.

Brown the chicken

  • Take the chicken out of the fridge and toss with the corn starch. Shake off the excess.
  • In a wok or frying pan, heat enough cooking oil to reach a depth of at least three inches.
  • Brown the chicken, in batches if necessary, until a light crust forms on the surface (you're not cooking the chicken all the way through at this point).
    Browning chicken in oil

Make the sauce

  • Pour off the oil in the pan leaving only a tablespoonful.
  • Saute the onion and garlic just until softened.
  • Add the chicken and cook, tossing, for a minute.
    Sauteeing onion and garlic, then adding browned chicken
  • Pour in the soy sauce and sprinkle in the brown sugar.
    Adding soy sauce and brown sugar to sauteed onion and garlic, and browned chicken
  • Add the oyster sauce and cook, tossing, until the sugar is completely dissolved.
    Adding oyster sauce to chicken in pan
  • Stir in the sesame seed oil.

Assemble and finish cooking

  • Arrange the chicken on top of the rice on one side of the pan.
    Arranging chicken and mushrooms on top of half-cooked rice in cast iron pan
  • Drizzle the sauce over the chicken and rice.
  • Spread the mushrooms and Chinese sausages beside the chicken.
    Arranging Chinese sausage and bok choy over rice in pan
  • Arrange the bok choy on the side opposite the chicken.
  • Pour half a cup of water (see notes after the recipe) along the edge of the pan.
    Cooking "claypot" chicken rice in cast iron pan
  • Cover the pan tightly and, with the heat set on low, cook everything together until the rice fully cooked (the chicken should be fully cooked too at this point).

Notes

How much water you need to add during the last stage of cooking depends on the age of your rice. Newly harvested rice needs much less liquid to cook in than rice that had been allowed to dry for much longer.
Keyword Chicken, Rice