Glutinous Fried Rice With Cured Meat

Glutinous fried rice is known as 生炒糯米飯 in Chinese, a typical comfort food in winter time. Although my specialty in the kitchen lies in dessert, I do enjoy cooking up a traditional Chinese meal every now and then, especially dishes that my brother enjoys very much. The inspiration for this dish was actually a little silly. I was watching a Hong Kong television show featuring one-on-one cooking lessons for celebrities. The episode starred Ella Koon, a pop singer who infamously earned the reputation of Master Chef From Hell because of her horrible cooking (watch the video starting at the 5:28 mark, she's the tall one in a grey shirt). One of the dishes which she learned to make was glutinous fried rice. There were plenty of tips discussed at the show so that got me interested. What I thought was a difficult dish to make is in fact quite simple. The following is my version.

Ingredients

• 320g glutinous rice (糯米)
• 5 large dried shitake mushroom (冬菇)
• 20g dried shrimp (蝦米)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 dry cured Chinese sausages (臘腸), sliced
• 1 dry cured Chinese liver sausage (潤腸), sliced
• 50g dry cured Chinese pork belly (臘肉), diced
• 200mL low sodium chicken broth
• 2 stalks of green onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (老抽)
• 2 tbsp soy sauce (生抽)

Method

1. 5 hours before cooking, rinse the glutinous rice and soak with enough water in a bowl to cover all the rice. In separate containers, soak the shitake mushroom and dried shrimps with just enough water to cover.
2. Bring a large pot of water to rolling boil. Drain the rice and briefly blanch in the boiling water for about 5 seconds. Drain with a fine sieve and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside.
3. Whisk the eggs and cook over high heat in a frying pan to make a thin omelette. Julienne finely and set side.
4. Reserve the soaking liquid for the mushroom and dried shrimp. Dice the mushrooms.
5. Using a frying pan at high heat, saute the cured meats with mushroom and dried shrimps until fragrant. Remove from pan and set aside.
6. Lightly coat a wok with cooking oil at medium-high heat. Put all the rice into the wok, stirring constantly. Similar to cooking risotto, add the reserved soaking liquid to the rice and keep stirring until the liquid is absorbed. Repeat this process with chicken stock as many times as necessary until the rice is cooked. It will be sticky because this is glutinous rice! It only took me less than 5 minutes, much quicker than risotto. That's because the rice was soaked and blanched earlier.
7. Mix in the cured meat, mushroom, and dried shrimps. Season with dark soy sauce and soy sauce to taste. Mix in green onion and egg. Serve immediately.