Got left over rice in the fridge? Got luncheon meat in the kitchen cabinet? Why not fry them together for a delicious plate of Luncheon Meat Fried Rice? Throw in some carrots for added taste and colour and a couple of slices of cucumber as garnish and you will have a beautiful plate of fried rice to dig in.

This is my recipe for Luncheon Meat Fried Rice.

Ingredients

• 3 bowls of cooked rice (preferably overnight cooked rice) [bowl denoting rice bowl]
• 1/2 to 1 tin of luncheon meat (diced)
• 1/2 bowl of carrots (diced)
• 1 large onion (chopped)
• 5 shallots (sliced thinly)
• 1 stalk spring onions (chopped)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil (preferably palm oil)

Seasoning

• 3 teaspoons of salt or to taste
• White pepper powder to taste
• teaspoon light soya sauce
• 1 pinch of msg (optional)

Method

Heat oil in wok and fry shallots till golden brown. Remove fried shallots and set aside.

With remaining oil in wok and at high heat, fry luncheon meat till beginning to brown. Set aside.

Stir-fry onion till aromatic, add carrots and stir fry for 1 minute. Add salt and pepper. Mix well.

Add rice and fried luncheon meat and stir-fry for 2 minutes.

Make a “well” in the wok by pushing the rice mixture aside. Break eggs into the “well” and fry it till semi-cooked. Cover with rice mixture and continue frying whilst adding light soya sauce. If wish to, add a pinch of msg. Fry for another minute and add chopped spring onions.

Dish up and sprinkle fried shallots over the fried rice before serving.

Cabbage Rice with Lap Cheong

This is my 3rd recipe for rice cooked in a rice cooker. Prior to this, I have a recipe for Chicken Rice as well as Long Bean Rice. This is another one of the vegetable rice recipes which can serve as a meal on its own.

Cabbage Rice with Lap Cheong (Chinese Sausages) is quite mild in flavour but sweet in taste. The sweetness comes from the cabbage. The type of cabbage we usually use is the chinese cabbage, which is white in colour and longish in shape rather than round. Try not to leave the rice uneaten overnight as I believe that the cooked cabbage does not withstand being kept overnight that well.

If you don’t have lap cheong, you can even substitute it with ham or even salami! Do experiment. As I have emphasised many times before in my recipes, you can actually experiment with the ingredients once you get the basic idea of how the dishes are cooked. The presentation of the rice in the picture above could be much better but the taste definitely is!

This is my recipe for Cabbage Rice with Lap Cheong (Chinese Sausages)

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice pre-soaked for 30 minutes (measured using the cup that comes with your rice cooker)
• About 400 grammes of chinese cabbage (shredded roughly)
• 400 grammes of belly pork (try to get the 3-layered pork. Remove skin)
• 5 to 8 pieces dried chinese mushrooms (pre-soaked till soft. Remove from water and cut to slivers but retain water for later use)
• 50 grammes of dried prawns / shrimps (pre-soaked for 5 minutes. Remove from water but retain water for later use)
• 3 to 5 lap cheong (remove skin and slice thinly diagonally)
• 5 cloves shallots (sliced thinly)
• 2 tablespoons of cooking oil (preferably palm oil)
• 3 bowls of water

Seasoning

• 4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
• 2 teaspoon light soya sauce
• 2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• A pinch of msg (optional)

Method

Bring water to boil. Add belly pork and let it boil till cooked. Remove pork. Cut into small pieces.

Heat oil in wok and fry shallots till golden brown. Remove fried shallots.

With remaining oil in wok, fry the cooked belly pork till beginning to brown. Remove pork. With remaining oil, fry the dried prawns and chinese mushrooms for 1 minute till fragrant. Add cabbage and put back the pork into the wok and continue to stir fry for 1 more minute. Add seasoning and a little bit of water (used to soak mushrooms / dried prawns) to keep it moist.

Add pre-soaked rice into the ingredients and stir well for 1 minute.

Transfer the ingredients into rice cooker and add water till it covers rice completely just like how you usually cook rice. Turn on the rice cooker. Check occasionally for water to dry out from the upper layer of the rice. Once that happens, place lap cheong on top of the rice, cover lid and wait for rice to cook completely.

Sprinkle fried shallots over rice before serving.

Foreground : Long Bean Rice
Background : Kiam Chye Tau Foo Soup

Rice cookers are not meant just to cook plain rice. Prior to this, I have a recipe for Chicken Rice cooked in a Rice Cooker. Apart from Chicken Rice, you can also cook other types of rice, one of which is Long Bean Rice.

Ingredients

A meal on its own, you will find out here that you can also cook a soup as a side dish arising out of the use of the ingredients here. I will give the recipe for the soup another day. Anyway, the fact that all the ingredients are firstly stir-fried and then cooked in the rice cooker gives the whole dish maximum flavour from the various ingredients used.

Place into rice cooker before turning on the cooker

Long Beans can be stir-fried on its own with belacan or even garlic and is highly nutritious. Eat too much, however, you may end up with too much gas in your stomach which is common among beans. Once you master this dish, you can substitute the long beans with other vegetables such as cabbage, pumpkin or even “kua chye” – I am still trying to find out what’s the anglo-name for this vegetable.

This is my recipe for Long Bean Rice.

Ingredients

• 2 cups rice pre-soaked for 30 minutes (measured using the cup that comes with your rice cooker)
• About 15 pieces of long beans (cut to 2 inch lengths)
• 400 grammes of belly pork (try to get the 3-layered pork. Remove skin)
• 5 to 8 pieces dried chinese mushrooms (pre-soaked till soft. Remove from water and cut to slivers but retain water for later use)
• 30 grammes of dried prawns / shrimps (pre-soaked for 5 minutes. Remove from water but retain water for later use)
• 5 bulbs shallots (sliced thinly)
• 2 tablespoons of cooking oil (preferably palm oil)
• 3 bowls of water

Seasoning

• 4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
• 2 teaspoon light soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• A pinch of msg (optional)

Method

Bring water to boil. Add belly pork and let it boil till cooked. Remove pork. Cut into small pieces.

Heat oil in wok and fry shallots till golden brown. Remove fried shallots.

With remaining oil in wok, fry the cooked belly pork till beginning to brown. Remove pork. With remaining oil, fry the dried prawns and chinese mushrooms for 1 minute till fragrant. Add long beans and put back the pork into the wok and continue to stir fry for 1 more minute. Add seasoning and a little bit of water (used to soak mushrooms / dried prawns) to keep it moist.

Add pre-soaked rice into the ingredients and stir well for 1 minute.

Transfer the ingredients into rice cooker and add water till it covers rice completely just like how you usually cook rice. Turn on the rice cooker and wait for it to cook automatically.

Sprinkle fried shallots over rice before serving.

Chicken Rice cooked using Rice Cooker

The rice cooker is a very useful kitchen equipment and is present in many Asian households. Whilst it is primarily designed to cook rice, newer versions of the rice cooker has enable cooks to use it for steaming and even boiling soup.

Recently, my mum cooked Chicken Rice using the rice cooker. It is actually another version of the popular Claypot Chicken Rice. The beauty of using the rice cooker is that the rice does not get burnt at the bottom unlike the claypot. However, for those who are fond of burnt bits of rice, you may have to try this using the claypot instead.

This is the recipe for Chicken Rice using the Rice Cooker.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of rice (measure using the cup that comes supplied together with the rice cooker)
• 2 large chicken drumsticks and chicken thighs (chopped to bit sizes)
• 5 chinese dried mushrooms (pre-soaked in a bowl of water and cut to half or quarters. Do not throw away the water used for soaking)
• 2 chinese lap cheongs (chinese sausages) (sliced)
• 4 bulbs shallots (sliced thinly)
• 5 slices of ginger (more if you like a stronger ginger taste)
• 2 tablespoons of cooking oil
• warm water

Marinade for chicken

• 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoon of white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon of chinese cooking wine

Seasoning

• 5 teaspoons of light soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon of dark soya sauce

Method

Soak rice in water for about 1 1/2 hours. Marinade chicken for the same length of time.

Heat oil in wok and fry shallots till golden brown. Remove fried shallots.

With remaining oil in wok and at high heat, add pre-soaked chinese dried mushrooms and ginger and stir fry for about 1 minute. Add marinated chicken and stir fry for another minute.

Add pre-soaked rice and seasoning and continue frying for about 2 minutes. Sprinkle a little bit of warm water to keep the rice from drying out.

Remove rice with ingredients into the rice cooker. Place the lap cheongs over the rice. Pour water (previously used to soak dried chinese mushrooms) gently over the rice to cover the rice just like how you would usually cook white rice in a rice cooker. Add plain water if the water used to soak dried chinese mushrooms is insufficient. Turn on your rice cooker and let it cook.

Serve hot and sprinkle fried shallots over the rice prior to serving.

Note : As you learn to cook this dish, adjust the seasoning to your prefered taste. You can also sprinkle chopped spring onions over the Chicken Rice for added colour and taste.