Bao Zai Fan

Bao Zai Fan (Chinese clay pot rice) is a street dish found in many areas of china. It can be considered a chinese variant of peleau/pilaf/plov. Unlike the others, takes much less time to cook!

Ingredients and Equipment

A clay pot is ideal! Size depends on the amount your making! am using one that is designed for 1 serving. Any saucepan or pot would work, you just need to be aware of over burning the bottom layer of rice.

Traditionally the bottom layer of rice is crunchy, which I have come to like a lot!

Base

• Rice (½ cup)
• Rice wine vinegar (½ tsp)
• Sesame oil (½ tsp)
• Soy sauce (1 tsp)
• Scallions (chopped) (1 stalk)
• Water (¾ cup)

Variant: Cantonese Steamed fish

• Cilantro (3 sprigs chopped)
• Ginger (1 cm, julliened)
• Vegetable oil (1 tbsp)
• White fish (1 fillet)

There are many variations of Bao Zai Fan, pork, chicken, etc…

Substitutions

• Replace vegetable oil with peanut oil

Method

Preparation

Unless you are using fresh fish, thaw the fish with cool running water in a bowl (about 10 to 20 minutes). At the same time soak the rice in twice the amount of water. The garnish can be prepared

• Ginger julienned
• Scallions chopped
• Cilantro chopped

In a small bowl mix the soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar.

Cooking

Once the fish has thawed, and the rice has finished soaking;

• Rinse the rice a few times, and drain
• Place in the pot with ¾ cups of water, and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer
• Cook for about 10 minutes
• Place the fish on top of the rice, and garnish with the ginger
• Continue to steam for 10 minutes

During the last 3 minutes of steaming, heat the oil (in the smallest pan you have)

Once the fish has finished steaming, remove from the heat, and garnish with the scallions and cilantro. Then pour the hot oil over the garnish and fish. You should hear some sizzling, and the fragrance of the garnish should be present!

fin.

Variations

Instead of using the Cantonese steamed fish variant, we can do the following

Mushroom ginger chicken

Ingredients

• Black chinese mushrooms (5 piece)
• Cornstarch (1 tsp)
• Chicken (1 cup)
• Ginger (2 cm julienned)
• Oyster sauce (1 tbsp)
• Rice wine vinegar (1 tsp)
• Sesame oil (1 tsp)
• Scallions (1 stalk, chopped)
• Soy sauce (1 tbsp)
• Wet ear mushrooms (3 piece)

Method

• Rehydrate the Black chinese mushrooms (shitake), in hot water for 30 minutes
• Rehydrate the wet ear mushrooms in luke-warm water
• Chop mushrooms to desired size (2 cm pieces)
• Slice the chicken
• Combine all ingredients, and marinate for 10 minutes

The rest is the same, except the combined ingredients is placed on top of the rice gently. The whole pot is then steamed for 20 minutes, and topped with the same soy sauce, seasame oil, rice vinegar mixture.

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