One of the reasons I love visiting my parents in Zhongshan in Guangdong province is indulging in all the Cantonese food I miss living up north. And rarely do we eat out, although not for lack of good restaurants. Mostly we cook at home, sometimes experimenting, other times cooking old favorites.
Clay pot rice with Cantonese sausage is one of my favorite homestyle favorites. Why eat plain rice when you can gobble up rice flavored with juicy sausages? Called “lap mei fan” or “bo zai fan” in Cantonese, clay pot rice is one of the easiest ways to elevate a weeknight meal, or act as a stand-alone meal.
What kind of sausage can you use? Either of the ones in the photo below: all-pork sausage (the reddish one, and most common kind), or pork and duck (the darker ones, smokier in flavor.) The squarish piece is cured duck meat, like cured ham except different animal. The most common “lap mei fan” includes all three, but you can use just the all-pork sausage, which is easiest to find outside China.
Another tip: if you’re cooking rice in a clay pot on a gas stove, it’s helpful to add a metal heat plate to diffuse the heat so the rice in the center doesn’t burn. (After the rice has absorbed most of the water, place the plate – like the one above – between the wok and the burner.) If you don’t have such a plate, just be diligent about stirring the rice in the middle of the pot.
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Other Cantonese recipes to try:
Chicken Congee with Goji Berries
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Clay Pot Rice with Cantonese Sausage
Serves 4
3 cups white rice
Enough water to cover rice by 1/2 inch
1 tablespoon vegetable or peanut oil
1/2 tablespoon salt
3 to 4 Cantonese sausages (lap cheong)
1 to 2 small bunches choi sum or Chinese broccoli (gai lan)
1/4 cup soy sauce
Egg for frying, optional
In a clay pot, add enough water to cover rice by 1/2 inch. Stir in oil and salt. Let stand 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, quickly plunge sausages in boiling water, like blanching vegetables, and remove. (This removes surface oil and other debris, especially helpful if your sausages are sold unwrapped.)
Bring water in the clay pot to boil over medium-high heat. Add sausages to the rice once the water is boiling. Reduce heat to medium and simmer with the lid on. After 10 to 12 minutes, when the rice has absorbed most of the water (as indicated by lack of water bubbles), add metal plates (optional) to diffuse heat.
Cook another 10 minutes, then add leafy greens to the top of the rice, and drizzle over with soy sauce. Re-cover the pot, allow greens to steam in the rice for 3 to 5 minutes, then turn off heat. Remove the sausages and slice. Return sausages to the rice and keep the pot covered until ready to serve. (Optional: Add fried or over-easy egg.)
I make this a lot at home because it is a one pot dish. Great for a week night dinner for two at home. Good tip about the diffusing plate. Although I love the brown rice crisp that forms at the bottom of the clay pot.
My favorite is the liver sausage. Even just steaming the rice with some sausages inside the rice cooker imparts a beautiful fragrance. I don’t do this nearly often enough, and now you’ve reminded me.
I eat this occasionally and it is a really good dish. Great for winter and any cold day in general. Your photo on the top of the post looks exceedingly mouthwatering! I like the different colors and they stand out a lot.
What a wonderful looking dish and I love Cantonese sausage. I have a Asian grocery just a few blocks away and I
m always going over there for food lol. Yummy!
This looks delicious! I got a couple pounds of chinese sausage from my great-aunt. This sounds like one great way to use it!
I’d love to make this, but I don’t have a clay pot. Do you think I could make this in a regular pot?
WOW what a fabulous recipe to post up. THANK YOOOUUU!!!
Thanks for a great recipe. :) After seeing the picture (and drooling) I went and bought a clay pot from a chinese grocery store near work.
I halved the recipe and made it last night for dinner- skipped the egg and added some freshly cut chillis to the soy sauce. mmm delish!
That looks spectacular! Love the sausages: thanks for illuminating the differences between them.
I love, love claypot rice, especially the crispy bits. This just reminds me once again to get a claypot.
thx for the tongue-seducing pictures>< omg, i am totally hungry now ~~!!haha
Sounds interesting. It’s too bad I don’t eat pork…which is probably why I haven’t found much Cantonese food I enjoy. I’ll have to wait til I move to the states to find alternative meat sausages to try to cook with this.
I love cooking in clay pots. Sometimes I change the recipe so I bake in an oven instead, though. It just doesn’t feel right to me on the stovetop.
Jude – There’s a really popular restaurant in Hong Kong that makes clay pot rice in an oven. The owner started cooking rice that way when he ran out of stove space. He discovered how to get the rice just right, with a little crispiness on top, and now business is so good he takes nights and Sundays off!
I make this in a stainless steel pot pretty often and it’s still delicious!
where is this restaurant?
just discovered this blog through a friend. love it. although i got pretty hungry reading it. oh, and my family is from zhongsan too! looking forward to more recipes.
Do you think it would come out similarly if i used a le Cruset enameled cast iron pot? Or is clay the key?
I ate this for dinner tonight. My fam is from Toisan and we’d never even heard about it. It was very tasty, the veggies and eggs added the perfect touch!
I cook this claypot with chinese sausage + salted fish (Sall cut & debone). The fragracne of the sausage and salted fish YUMMY.
What brand of soy sauce do you use for this recipe?
My preferred brand of soy sauce is Kikkoman, but you can use any soy sauce that lists soybeans and water in the ingredients (instead of artificial flavors.)
I think the squarish piece is pork belly. I’m going to try this recipe today. Thank you.