Claypot Chicken Rice

It was a public holiday yesterday, being Prophet Muhammad's Birthday. Stayed at home catching up on some DVDs. After having a simple lunch, actually brunch, I was still feeling very lazy and blamed it entirely on the chilly weather. Was wondering what to cook that would be yummy but simple. Remembered what my mum used to cook for us on Saturdays when we were kids. Saturdays are her Petaling Street marketing day. She simply loves Petaling Street's wet market. She normally lugs me and my brothers with her and we are made to carry all her stuff (tells us that it builds character wor). By the time we get home, it would be after lunch. We would have eaten from the hawkers' stalls at the market before we came home.

After cleaning up the fish, chicken, vegetables, she would be quite tired. Hence, it would be this one big pot of Chicken Rice for dinner on Saturday. Actually, I quite like it. In fact, I like the rice better than the chicken in it. So, I will normally tell her to put less chicken and more rice in the pot. What is even yummier is the slightly burnt crust at the bottom of the claypot...yum yum.

She used to cook this rice in a large claypot over a charcoal fire. She still has that charcoal burner at home but we have since a long time back convinced her to switch to the modern rice cooker. Perhaps the finished product may not turn out as aromatic as that cooked using charcoal, but it is definitely cleaner and faster... hungry people are not happy people haha.

So, that was what I had yesterday, Claypot Chicken Rice cooked in a Rice Cooker.

Ingredients
3 cups of rice
1/2 a chicken
6 pieces of chinese mushrooms (soaked in hot water for about an hour and sliced)
1 piece of ginger (2inches - sliced into strips)
stalks of chinese parsley
1 tbsp of oil

Seasonings
1 tbsp of sesame seed oil
1 1/2 tbsp of thick soya sauce
1 tbsp of ligh soya sauce
1 tbsp of oyster sauce
sugar and salt to taste
pepper


Method

1. Wash and drain the rice. Set aside.
   
2. Cleaned the chicken and drain of all water
3. Added the seasonings onto the chicken and marinaded the chicken for 1/2 hour. Slightly more would make the chicken tastier
4. Heat 1 tbsp of oil in the wok and when oil is hot, put in the ginger strips. Fry until the ginger turns fragrant. Add in the mushrooms.
5. Put in the chicken with all its seasonings.
6. When the chicken appears cooked on the outside, put in the drained rice.
7. Mix the rice completely with the seasonings from the chicken. Once this is completed, turn of the fire and scoop the rice and chicken into the rice pot.
8. Add in 3 3/4 cups of water into the pot
9. When the rice cooker changes from "cook" to "warm", leave it for about 5 mins. Then open the cooker and use a pair of chopsticks to fluff the rice and chicken. Close cooker for another 5 minutes before serving.
10. Serve with some chinese parsley