Micky's Favorite Taiwanese Recipes: Rice

Showing posts with label Rice. Show all posts

Lo Ba Bong! Stew Pork Rice

Description:
Personally, I think don't think this is healthy... But heck, it's very very delicious and irresistible! The history of this dish actually came from mixing lard over rice :) to fill the bellies of poor farmer kids. It's evolved into a delicacy!

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:
1/2 lb of fatty pork chunk, (looks like bacon chunk).
*substitute: 1/2 lb fatty ground pork
2 Tablespoons fried red shallots
2 Tablespoons of minced garlic
6 cups of clear broth
2 star anise
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup cooking rice wine
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1 cup soysauce
*1/4 cup shitake mushrooms*
*hardboiled eggs*

Instructions:

If you're using ground pork, you can skip the next step. But you'll have to prepare 6 cups of clear broth.
Boil the pork chuck until fully cooked. Dice into tiny pieces. Save 6 cups of this broth and set it aside.
Add oil to pot and turn on high heat.
Add garlic and dried red onions, then sugar, soy sauce, wine, and broth into the pot.
Once the broth boils, add the meat and shitake mushrooms. Simmer for about an hour. You can add the hardboiled eggs about 30 mins after the meat.
At this point, there should be a layer of oil on the surface of the stew. Scoop this out, it's yucky.
Serve over a bowl of rice along with a stewed egg and even a Chinese pickle.

Suggestions:

Fatty Pork Chunks 五花肉
This type of meat is really just Bacon, but in bigger chucks. If you use bacon, it's sliced too thin. Some oriental markets have these chopped, some don't. If you can't find them chopped, just buy a chunk of fatty pork (the kind with many layers of fat that looks like bacon in a big chunk) and chop them yourself or use a food processor, but don't grind them too much!

Shitake Mushroom
This is the most popular mushroom used in Taiwan. They have a stronger aroma than the regular mushrooms and usually come dried in a package that you can pick up in oriental markets. To chop them, simply soak them in warm water for a few mins and they'll turn soft. If you absolutely can't find these, you can replace them with any other mushrooms.

Star Anise
Star anise is a type of Asian spice. It also comes in powder form. You can pick them up in any oriental supermarket.

This is fried shallot. It is a very important ingredient in this recipe because of it's flavor and armoa. You can buy this from any oriental market and it usually comes in a plastic can. However, if you keep this too long, it will start to smell like old oil. So you can try to use it up by sprinkling some in any Chinese soup.

Tasty Fried Rice

Description:
I've received many compliments on my fried rice. I'll post my secrets on here :)

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins

Ingredients:
1 cup rice (raw)
1~2 eggs beaten
1 cup of any type of chopped meat (shrimp, chicken, beef, Chinese sausage)
1/2 cup of frozen mix veggies
2 cloves of garlic minced
2 stalks green onion chopped
1/4 stick of unsalted butter chopped
2 Tablespoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of white pepper
1+ teaspoon of salt
*1 Tablespoons of bonito flavoring powder or 2 Tablespoons of fish sauce*

Instructions on cooking rice:
The secret to good fried rice is that the rice is not sticky. Therefore, it's best to use long grain (Jasmine) rice. If you use short grain (Calrose) rice, cook with less water. You have to stir fry with cold rice, therefore you can cook the rice the night before, mix soy sauce, white pepper, bonito powder (or fish sauce) with rice. Then chill it in the refrigerator overnight.

Instructions:

In frying pan, heat some oil in high heat and scramble the eggs.
When the eggs begin to brown, add the frozen veggies and stir fry. Remove the eggs and veggies from the pot and set them aside in a large bowl.
Add some more oil, add the garlic, and then the meat and stir fry until meat is cooked. If using Chinese sausage, you won't need to add the oil because the sausage will produce a lot of oil.
After the meat is cooked, add rice and stir fry. You have to be fast because the high heat might burn the bottom, but do not use low heat since it will make the rice too sticky. Using a wooden spatula makes the stir frying easier.
Once the rice and meat is evenly stir fried, add the eggs and veggies, butter, and green onions.
Season with salt according to your taste.
Continue to stir fry another few mins. Once the rice is brown and is not sticky, it should be ready.

Suggestions:

This is Chinese sausage. It's somewhat sweet and has a very good aroma after frying. It can be obtained in most oriental markets in packages.

Cooking Rice - too difficult?

Cost of rice cookers...
Asians use rice cooker to cook rice. Now, purchasing a rice cooker can be expensive. A good one can cost up to $200 ~ $300!!! But I did find an oster rice cooker at walmart for around $10! It's like the one in the picture except it's red, and it cooks 10 cups of rice. While brands like Salton and Kenwood might be cheaper, I only recommend either Japanese brands (Hitachi) or Oster, because many of the other brands tend to burn the rice.

Now what's the difference between the rice cookers...
There are mainly 2 types of rice cookers, automatic and traditional.

Automatic Vs. Traditional

Automatic rice cookers are used only for cooking rice. There is a pot inside the rice cooker where you put the rice and water, put it into the rice cooker, press the button, and that's it.

Traditional rice cookers are more flexible as in they can also work as a steamer, slow cooker, etc. The only difference is that you have to add water into the rice cooker before you put the pot in, so there's water outside the pot as well.

How to cook rice with a rice cooker...
It really depends on the type of rice you are cooking. Typically the measurements are: 1 cup of rice add 1 cup of water
Now Jasmine rice (long grain) is less sticky than Calrose rice (short grain), it takes a little less water. Brown & wild rice require presoaking for 1/2 a day before cooking.

Put the amount of rice you want into the pot
Wash it under tap water (fill the pot with water, wash, then pour out starchy water)
Measure the amount of water you need and pour into the pot.
Put the pot into the rice cooker and press the button. If it's automatic, dry the outside of the pot before placing it in. If it's traditional, fill the rice cooker with 1 cup of water before placing the pot in.
When the rice is cooked, the button will click and the light will go from red to orange. Let it sit for another 5 mins before opening the lid.

Suggestion
If you add a few drops of oil and vinegar to your rice (before cooking), your rice would turn out sticker and more chewy.

Taiwanese Comfort Food - Congee!

Description:
What do all Taiwanese people eat when they're sick? That's right! CONGEE! It's the real food given to Taiwanese babies to help them grow strong bones! This is also what Taiwanese people like to eat for breakfast... not cereal!

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 30 mins ~ 1 hr

Ingredients:
2 large bones (pig or cow, for the broth)
1 cup of rice washed
4 cups of water
1/2 lb ground pork
2 stalks green onion chopped
3~4 heads of Japanese Shitake Mushrooms chopped
1/4 cup carrots finely chopped
1/4 cup ginger finely chopped

Instructions:

Boil the bones in water until bone marrow builds up. Scoop it out of the stock and continue to simmer for 1 hour. You can use a slow cooker if you wish.
On a separate stove, add a little oil and stir fry the ground pork, carrots, ginger, and mushrooms.
Once the broth is ready, pour in the cooked pork and veggies and rice. Boil until soup thickens.
Add salt and white pepper for taste.
Top with green onions before serving.

Suggestions:
You can substitute most of the ingredients, such as replacing pork with fish and add celery. It's usually whatever you have in the refrigerator. Another option for broth is to buy them from the store, it's less healthy, but you don't have to spend time cooking it. I buy the free range chicken broth with no MSG and less sodium from Central Market.