Steamed cured meat rice (腊味饭）

 

For Cantonese people, lamei （腊味）or preserved meat, is a must-have New Year's dish. It is a classic Cantonese New Year dish that both adults and kids look forward to, whether it is steamed, fried, or boiled into delectable, preserved meat rice.

In fact, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau are where the practice of purchasing preserved meat for Chinese New Year is most popular. Prior to the New Year, the older Cantonese Malaysian generation still purchases preserved meat. Elder always told that in order to be complete during Chinese New Year, we must consume all the "flavours" we miss the most. They view that cured meat or preserved meat as having the most recognizable "flavour”.

There are many types of Cantonese-style cured meat. In addition to the common sausages, bacon, cured duck, and cured sausages. Suppose I wanted to make La Mei and steamed rice with bacon, duck and sausages.  I haven’t seen cured duck for sale this year. So, I cooked without the cured duck for this time.

How to eat cured meat? As I referenced above, steamed, fried, or boiled all are heavenly. This time, I cooked cured meat into rice so that the oil could seep into the grains of white rice. This cured meat rice may seem common to you, what with all the cured meat on top, the sauce on top, and the vegetables for garnish. An intensely aromatic oily and sweet scent washes over as soon as the lid is lifted.

In order to create the rice with burned grains hidden at the bottom, it is frequently cooked in a clay pot. I am not keen on the crispy scorched rice; I steamed the rice this time in the wok. In order to reduce cooking time, some of the recipes online will suggest soaking the rice for 30 minutes in advance, particularly for New Year's Eve dinner when you need to make a substantial feast for the family. As per me, steaming rice in a wok is quicker than in a rice cooker.

Generally, the ratio of water to rice when cooking rice is about 1: 1.2, which is suitable for people of all ages. Of course, it is also depending on the water absorption of the rice if you want to eat harder, you can cook rice with a 1:1 ratio.

A very important and often overlooked part of cured meat rice is the sauce. The most memorable thing about delicious, cured meat rice is the taste of the sauce.

 

INGREDIENTS

300g rice

200g preserved meat (bacon and sausage)

100g baby Kai Lan / bok choi

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp oyster sauce.

1 tsp sugar

50ml chicken stock or water

Some sesame oil.

 

Blanching vegetables

1 tsp cooking oil

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp sugar

 

METHOD

1.Wash and clean the rice, sliced the cured meat.

2.Combined all the sauce into a small bowl and made into bibimbap sauce.

3.To blanch vegetables. Bring a small pot of water, mix in the blanching ingredients, bring it to boil. Carefully placed the baby Kai Lan in the pot of boiling water and using a soup ladle or a tong, help submerge the vegetables. Cook until the vegetables become crisp tender and bright green, but not soft.  Set aside.

4.Put the rice on a flat bottom pan and placed the cured meat on the rice. Steamed in a wok.

5.After the water in the pan dries up, pour a circle of oil along the side of the pan.

6.Then pour the prepared sauce on step (2) along the side of the pan and over the top of the rice. Cover the lid and let it continue to steam for another 5 – 10 minutes to let the rice absorb all the sauce. Garnished with the boiled baby Kai Lan. ENJOY!!