Cantonese Pork Sausage Vegetable Rice (臘腸菜飯, Laap6 Coeng4 Coi3 Faan6)

At my local Shanghai restaurant, there is a dish called Shanghai Vegetable Rice (上海菜飯, soeng⁶ hoi² coi³ faan⁶) which consists of salted pork, baby bok choy, and white rice cooked in a clay pot. The first time I ate dinner at this restaurant, every table had ordered this dish (except mine, of course!). So the next time I went to the restaurant, I had to try the dish and it was quite tasty.

So I went online and looked for a recipe and found this one (this is Chinese language website in English, so I’m unable to give the English name of the site), which uses a rice cooker instead of a clay pot to cook the dish. I made a few modifications to the recipe: using Cantonese pork sausage, instead of salted pork; using the microwave, instead of water, to blanch the baby bok choy; increasing the amount of garlic; and using brown, instead of white, rice. All the changes resulted in a similar, but still tasty rice dish, and the amount of effort to prepare the dish is pretty easy. Try this dish if you’re looking for a substitute for plain rice.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 cups	500 ml.	White or brown long grain rice (米, mai5)
4	4	Cantonese pork sausage (臘腸, laap6 coeng4), quartered lengthwise and diced into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces
4	4	Baby bok choy (小白菜, siu2 baak6 coi3), cut into thin pieces
3 cloves	3 cloves	Garlic (蒜, syun3), crushed in a garlic press
		Water to cook the rice
		Oil for cooking

 

Equipment

14 in.	35.5 cm.	Wok or pan
5.5+ cup	1.3+ L.	Rice cooker

 

Instructions

1. Put the rice into a bowl.
2. Quarter the Cantonese pork sausage lengthwise and then dice into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces.
3. Microwave the baby bok choy on the high setting for 1-2 minutes. When the baby bok choy starts releasing steam, it can be removed from the microwave. Cool the baby bok choy under cold water and then shake the baby bok choy to remove as much liquid as possible. Cut the baby bok choy into thin pieces and place into a bowl.
4. Crush the garlic with a garlic press into a small bowl.
5. Heat a wok or pan over high heat and before adding oil. Add the Cantonese pork sausage pieces into the wok and brown the outside. Once the sausage is browned and oil released, add the garlic and rice to the wok, and stir fry for one minute to coat the rice with the oil. Put the contents of the wok into rice cooker.
6. Fill the rice cooker with the normal amount of water you use to cook rice, cover, and then turn on the rice cooker. Once the rice is cooked, uncover the rice cooker, add and mix the baby bok choy into the rice cooker, recover, and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.