Shanghainese Vegetable Rice

By Meow

This is one of most popular Shanghainese dishes. Rice is flavoured with vegetable and ham/bacon. It's healthy and super quick and easy to make! This is a family recipe from my mom who is Shanghainese and it's been passed on from my grandmother!

Ingredients

• 1 cup white rice
• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 package Chinese Pak Choy (白菜)
• 1 tbsp chopped ginger
• 1 tsp sugar
• Pinch of pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup Bacon or Panchetta or Cooked Ham or Chinese Ham (金華火腿)

Preparation

Step 1

1) Wash rice, drain and add into rice cooker with water (water should only be about 1cm above the surface of the rice). Turn on rice cooker and set aside to cook.

2) Wash Pak Choy and cut into thick slices. Dice Ham/Pancetta into small pieces.

3) Add Ham/bacon to frying pan and brown over high heat until the fat comes out. Set meat aside with the grease.

4) Add oil and chopped ginger to same frying pan and stir fry Pak Choy over high heat for 1-2 min until the liquid from the vegetable comes out. Then season with pepper and sugar. Do not overcook the Pak choy, should still be green and crunchy. Set cooked vegetable and liquid aside.

3) When rice is about half cooked, add the liquid from the Pak Choy into the rice and cover the top of rice with ham. Close lid and cook for another 10 min until the cooker light switches off.

4) Add Pak Choy to the rice and mix the vegetable into the rice and ham (flip the rice at the bottom to the top). If the rice is too hard, sprinkle a bit of water onto the rice. Close the lid and let the rice cooker cook again for another 10 min. Taste to check if rice is thoroughly cooked. If you want the rice to be softer, close the lid and keep warm for another 10 mins.