Dinner at home is typically 三菜一汤 (three dishes and one soup) on weekdays but lately, with the addition of an infant, we have been trying to simplify dinner. One dish meals seem to be the way to go and this claypot chicken rice is one of our favourite Chinese one dish meals. It uses simple ingredients, is fast to prepare (start to finish is just slightly more than an hour) and is definitely satisfying. Of course, it can’t beat claypot rice that is cooked over charcoal fire but this definitely comes close. My hubby loves scraping up the slightly charred crispy rice bits at the bottom of the claypot!

Here are some tips for preparing claypot chicken rice. Firstly, cooking times with a claypot would vary with the size of claypot and the fire used. I’ve given guidelines that work for my claypot in my recipe but you may wish to adjust the timing after you’ve tried the recipe for the first time. For the claypot, I’ve used a Tanyu flat bottom claypot, but you can use any seasoned claypot. Noobcook has some good advice on preparing a claypot for its first use here. I’ve adjusted the liquid amount for this recipe so that the rice is moist but not soggy. If you prefer the rice to be drier, you may wish to reduce the liquid amount further. Lastly, whenever possible, use a low sodium chicken stock. If using chicken stock cubes/packaged chicken stock, it would be advisable to use half water and half stock as the stock is usually rather salty.

And now for the recipe…Continue Reading