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Snapshots from Asia: Claypot Rice

Posted by Wan Yan Ling, August 7, 2007 at 12:30 PM

We like crisp bits, no matter if they appear in sa po fan, donabe-taki, or dolsot bibimbap, Photograph by Shimin Wong

A dish you will find in various guises all over Asia, claypot rice is at its most basic—rice cooked lovingly in a vessel over an open flame. Now, I know what you're thinking. And, no, it's not just rice. In a forum populated with dotty food lovers, it's important to be specific, and what I'm raving about here is what the Japanese call okoge—the nutty, slightly charred crust of grains that sit on the bottom and sides of the pot. Okoge have been known to inspire fierce paeans and ferocious fork battles among otherwise easy-going makan khakis (Singlish for "nosh buddy").

Most modern kitchens here in Singapore rely on an electric rice cooker for their daily starch. The cook throws in grains and water, and voilà! In half an hour, you have the singular aroma of freshly steamed rice wafting throughout the house. It's fast, easy, and takes all the guesswork out of producing fluffy, individual grains of rice that beckon invitingly and glisten in the light.

However, if it's okoge you're after, you will have to sacrifice convenience and turn to a more traditional vessel—and do the hard work of monitoring the heat and resisting the urge to peek, all while salivating over visions of the meal to come.

The Chinese call it sa po fan, the Japanese donabe-taki gohan, and the Koreans outdo us all in extracting maximum crispness by using a stone pot for optimal heat retention in their dolsot bibimbap.

Whichever your culinary pathway, the sky's the limit as to what goes into the pot to add flavor and depth to the rice. The typical version you'll find in hawker centers around Singapore will have slices of fatty laap cheong, or Chinese sausage, which release a goodly amount of lard into the dish; pork spare ribs; fried strips of salty preserved fish; soy-sauce marinated chicken; and shitake mushrooms. A few stems of leafy greens on the side are a somewhat healthy concession to what is arguably a none-too-healthy dish, but the rice, drizzled liberally with shallot oil, sesame oil, and dark soy sauce, is clearly the star.

With the recent babble over "counterfeit" food and my personal crusade against "calorie wastage," here's a tip to getting the real deal: Claypot rice cannot, should not, must not be rushed. Expect to wait 15 to 20 minutes for yours to arrive. Anything less and what you'll be getting is merely ordinary steamed rice with gravy and stuff on top, served in a claypot as white as a baby's bottom—a complete wayang ("performance") hardly worth the calories.

About the author: Wan Yan Ling, Serious Eats's overseas summer intern, is an impoverished grad student and sourdough finger-crosser living in Singapore. She can usually be found in the kitchen procrastinating on "real work," or online tracking down obscure recipes. Ling thinks eating alone is no fun, and she still believes in hand-mixing.

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Tags: claypot rice, rice, Singapore, Snapshots from Asia