Sunday, March 25, 2012

Long Bean Flavorful Mixed Rice (豆角有味饭)

This cooked long bean rice is full of flavor. Some of you must be asking what is 豆角 (dou jiao). 豆角 is literally long bean in Cantonese. We usually called this 长豆 in Singapore.

This is a ONE POT dish that my grandma used to cook for me during my childhood time. This pot of flavorful rice can serve the whole family with little effort, and it is really good if your cooking need to be done way in advance, because this can be well kept in your rice cooker up to 2 hours or longer if you want. It is not a quick meal. Because you need some effort when it comes to preparation. I would say, it's more on a quick-quick-slow meal. Like Tango dance :)

It's a busy Saturday today. Max went Bintan for company trip. I've got to send my car to the garage to get it serviced, drive to the market and get some fresh ingredients. Reached home around 1pm, and start to do all my cooking preparation. I choose to cook this mixed rice today because I've got some errand run around later at 4pm, and need to fetch Max from the ferry terminal at 5pm, which this timing supposed to be my dinner preparation time. I don't want him to reach home without dinner being served after his long day. So... here it is.

The ingredient that I'm gonna use here is common ingredient that you could easily get from the market. This recipe could easily feed 4 to 5 adult.



Ingredient A - (Rice)
  • 3 cups of Jasmine Rice (the ordinary chinese rice that you have at home)
  • 500ml water
Seasoning for Rice
  • 2 cloves garlic - peeled, washed, chopped
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 1 tsp dark soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce


Ingredient B - (Long Bean Mixture)
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 4 shallots - Peeled, washed, and sliced.
  • 3 slices of ginger - Julienned
  • 3 tbsp dried shrimps - Washed, soaked till soft, drained.
  • 1 pair Chinese sausage (腊肠)- Washed with hot water, drained, remove skin, sliced.
  • 10 long beans - washed, cut into 1 inch length.
Seasoning for Long Bean Mixture
  • 1 tbsp Shao-Xing Wine (Chinese cooking wine)
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • a dash of pepper
  • a dash of sesame oil
Ingredient C - (Roasted Pork)
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 clove garlic - finely chopped
  • 200g Roasted Pork (烧肉) - chopped into bite size
Seasoning for Roasted Pork
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
The list of ingredient is long eh? But It's worth preparing. Trust me.



Method

1. RICE - Rinse and soak rice in water for 30mins. Drained and set aside.

2. ROASTED PORK - Heat up wok, a tbsp oil, chopped garlic, fry till fragrance. Add in roasted pork, give it a quick toss under high heat. The pork will release some oil during stir frying. And this is what we want. The oil! Add in sugar & soy sauce, fry till the pork looks brownish and caramelized. Heat off, dish up. And by now, your kitchen is full of stir fried roasted pork aroma, that makes you wants to put one into your mouth immediately... Cantonese called this method of stir-frying roasted pork as 爆烧肉 (bao-siu-yuk). It's simply enhancing the flavor of the roasted pork.



3. LONG BEAN MIXTURE - Heat 2 tbsp of oil in wok, fry shallots till golden brown, add ginger and fry till fragrant. Add in the rest of the ingredients - Chinese sausages, dried prawns, long bean. Sizzle in Shao-Xing wine, give it a quick toss. Add in seasoning - salt. sugar. pepper, sesame oil. Heat off, dish up, set aside. You don't need to thoroughly cook this. What you need is just kinda combine all of them and make sure that they are evenly coated with flavors & fragrance.

4. RICE - Heat 1 tbsp of oil in a wok, fry garlic till fragrant. Reduce to low heat, sizzle in seasoning for rice - light soy sauce, add rice, dark soy sauce and oyster sauce. Fry evenly at high heat for awhile. Off the heat. Transfer fried rice and add 500ml water into rice cooker. Switch on and cook for about 13 to 15 minutes. Using time to time yourself is always the best choice.

5. When the water almost dried up, add in fried long beans mixture, and roasted pork.



6. Cover it, continue to cook until the rice cooker automatically turn to "Keep Warm" mode. Leave it there for another 5 to 10 mins. Stir well - But I would prefer to use the word "Messed it up". LOL!


8. And serve!


I couldn't tell you how delicious this pot of mixed rice is. But the fact is that, my dear father-in-law ate HALF POT of the rice on his own. Scroll up the picture and see the rice in the rice cooker once again. The rice in my rice cooker is almost full. The space is juuuuuust nice when i shut the rice cooker cover.

When we return home, and I open my rice cooker. Wanted to serve Max some rice, I rubbed my eyes twice when I saw my pot of rice left with half pot only. If I knew this mice my father-in-law could eat so much, I would have cooked more.


So, you want a bowl?


Max loves it too. He ate two bowls :)

7 comments:

  1. Hi, reading this brings back memories. My mom used to cook this too during my childhood. Its a fast one pot meal for us when we are pressed for time. These days, i cook this for my own family, my 2 kids and hubs. We use chicken instead because we are Muslims. No lap cheong also. Purists will say it wont taste authentic but its fine with me. My mom serves this with sambal belacan. With the sambal or even some cut cilli padi and soy sauce, its more appetising. Other one pot meals which we do are pumpkin rice and yam rice. Traditional stuff which my mom's big extended family used to eat 60-70 yrs ago.
    Keep blogging cos im enjoying the posts and all the food!
    Linda
    Malacca

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  2. Hi Anonymous, indeed, this is one of the best childhood food that my grandma did it for me too. I'm glad that you like it. Do stay tuned for more recipe! :D

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  3. Hi, can I cook the exact portion in my 1litre rice cooker?

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    Replies
    1. Hi Anonymous, For this recipe, i cook it using my rice cooker is 5.5 cups capacity. I'm not sure about your's :)

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  4. My boss gave me a simple recipe of this long beans rice last night, he said he want to eat this old traditional food, I have no idea how it looks but looking on the recipe I concluded it sounds like the chaufan rice at Chow King Restaurant .
    So to confirm my what on my thoughts I google it and found your post :)
    Thank you for sharing it.
    I also found out that there's some other ways of cooking it.
    today I will cook the simplest one in the recipe I have in hand and will try your recipe the next time .
    Thanks again :)
    Im happy to learn new things each day.

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  5. My fav too.. I will add yam as well .. For me, i'll put in all ingredients including rice into the rice cooker and let it cook ;)

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    Replies
    1. Hi WT, it works too. Cooking method depends on individual preference )

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