Crispy Clay Pot Rice: Hong Kong’s Ultimate Comfort Food

After opening the lid, you loosen the rice. You don't move the rice, just loosen it. Then you eat the rice and the meat. At the end, you scrape the rice. In southern China, people love this sizzling rice dish served in a heated clay pot. It's a traditional cooking method that creates multiple textures of rice in one pot. Especially when it's cold, it's satisfying to eat a bowl of rice alone. I'm Chan Kok Ying. Our restaurant is called Hing Kee Chai Kwan. We started in the early 1980s. We use a clay pot to cook the rice. The clay has small holes in it. After the rice is cooked, the smoky flavor of the fire is absorbed into the clay pot. When you eat it, it's more fragrant. It's different from rice cooked in a rice cooker. A small rice cooker is good. The rice has to be fragrant. The rice is very important. We have to soak the rice for half an hour to wash off the starch. Only then will the rice taste good. When we cook the rice, the rice is fresh in the pot. We add hot water to the rice. We cook until the rice is dry. It's difficult to control the amount of water in a rice cooker. If the water is too much, the rice will be hard. If the water is too little, the rice will be hard. We cook the rice for about 15 minutes. We add the meat and cook it on the stove. We add ribs and beef to the chicken. I like to eat octopus and chicken. Octopus is a dried octopus. It has a salty and fragrant flavor. When you open the rice after cooking it, you can feel the fragrance. When you eat rice cooked in a rice cooker, you have to add soy sauce. When the rice is cooked, you add about a circle of soy sauce. We have adjusted the soy sauce. It's sweet, not salty. We cover the lid to let the meat and rice absorb the flavor. In southern Chinese cities like Guangzhou and Hong Kong, small restaurants serving claypot rice are everywhere. The history of claypot rice is based on a book. In the past, farmers had to work in the fields. They didn't have time to eat at home, so they would cook rice and meat in the fields. After serving the dish for decades, Chan has her own thoughts on what makes perfect claypot rice. We add an egg to the rice and cook it. The egg yolk stays in the center. When you mix it with the rice, it becomes more fragrant. Customers like to eat the rice with pepper. After eating the rice, there is pepper at the bottom. It's crispy and a little hard. Our kitchen has 40 claypot rice cookers. The most popular one was a few years ago. We had 1,800 claypot rice cookers. The biggest problem this year is the pandemic. The number of customers has dropped. At first, many people didn't dare to eat out because they didn't know how the disease would spread. I started working here in 1997. I used to do business with my father. When my father first opened, there were only five types of claypot rice. I think there are more than 60. Do you have a unique style of claypot rice in your restaurant? Unique? I don't think anyone uses cheese sausage. There's also smoked duck breast. We launched spicy chicken last year. It's popular among people who like spicy food. Cheese sausage is for kids or younger customers. Our restaurant will pass it on to the next generation. Maybe the younger customers will plan better plans.