Epicure
For a potful of warmth
By Pauline D Loh (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-04 09:13
Food evokes happy memories, and we often seek solace in the food of our early childhood, especially if we are stressed, temporarily out of love or thawing from the frigid cold of an unfriendly winter.
For some of us, these memories are triggered by the fragrance of a stewing dish, a simmering pot of soup or the smoky scent of rice cooking on an open fire.
Most of us have forgotten how to cook a pot of rice from scratch, so dependent are we are on the easy magic of the electric rice cooker. But there is something primeval and totally satisfying about a clay pot of rice simmering on the stove, especially if it's a wood fire.
It can be a totally sensuous experience - from the first sizzle of the damp pot hitting the fire, the rapid bubbling as the water heats and the rice grains dance, and finally the release of rice-scented steam. In winter, it was good to stand beside my mother, warmed by her presence and the rising steam of the cooking rice.
She made clay-pot rice often in winter. It was a labor of love because she would need to stand by the stove, guarding the pot of rice so it would not burn. It was indeed an art because by the end of the meal, my brothers and I would be fighting for the light golden crust at the bottom of the pot.
Sometimes, my mother added shredded dried scallops to the boiling rice as a treat, and the savory seafood scent would perfume the whole house. Ours was a pretty small house.
While the rice simmered, I would help my mother prepare the ingredients that went on top of the rice. On special occasions, it would be half a chicken, chopped into serving sizes, seasoned with oyster sauce and buffered with some sliced shiitake mushrooms and dried lily flowers.
More often than not, it would be just a couple of Chinese sausages, or a waxed duck drumstick.
We lived in the south, and the Chinese sausages (lup cheong in Cantonese) were most delicious in winter. They were made with lean pork marinated in Chinese wine, salt and sugar and mixed with tiny pieces of pork fat for moisture. The sausages were best after they had been hung up to dry in the freezing north wind.
The most well-known were from Dongguan, Guangdong province, and these short fat sausages were always strung up in pairs. My favorites were the duck liver sausages which were a lot softer than the meat sausages and had a more pronounced fragrance of wine.
The so-called "waxed duck" is actually a preserved duck soaked in brine and seasoning and hung up to dry. Traditionally made during the "wax month" or la yue, it became known as "waxed duck" or la ya. But rest assured, there is no actual waxing involved.
My mother would gently lay the sausages or the preserved duck on the surface of the rice as the water evaporated and the rice grains started to fluff up. Timing was crucial. If they were added too soon, they would boil instead of steam. If you added them too late, they would not cook through.
Done right, they sat on the snowy white rice, slowly leaking their delicious juices into the pot. This was when mother would cover the clay pot and shoo us off to prepare the dining table. The clay pot would remain covered until it was time to serve the rice.
There was yet another ritual to complete. This involved mixing really good dark soya sauce with a dash of sesame oil, and a teaspoon of sugar. This was mixed and poured over the steaming hot rice before it was portioned out to the eagerly waiting kids.
This simple clay pot rice did not cost much, but to us, it tasted better than a whole potful of braised sharks fin. A few decades have passed and it is still a winter winner that warms the cockles of our heart. It's the season to share, so here they are, two clay pot rice recipes from our family to yours.
