Do You Interested In Yam Rice?

I am quite fond of Yam though I don’t eat it that regularly. There are many ways of cooking Yam – dessert, dim sum or stir fried but one easy dish to cook it would be Yam Rice. Yam Rice can be considered an all-in-one dish because you don’t really need to cook anything else with it, save perhaps a nice bowl of soup to further whet your appetite. The best part of cooking Yam Rice is that you only need a small portion of yam to cook this dish. Too much and you will be stuffing yourself silly unless you are cooking for a party. Perhaps you might want to consider saving some forYam and Sago Dessert.

My mum advised that the Yam should be cut into small cubes and pre-fried separately from the rice. Overcooked Yam will turn mushy or break up and you might lose the flavour a bit. Just add the fried yam into the rice just as the rice is boiling in the rice cooker and you should have nice fluffy rice with fragrant fried yam cubes. As usual in these kind of rice recipes, you will need dried shrimps and mushrooms for the full flavour.
This is mum’s recipe for Yam Rice
Ingredients

• 1 cup of yam (cut into small cubes and pre-fried till light brown)
• 150 grammes of skinless belly pork
• 5 to 8 pieces Chinese dried mushroom (pre-soaked in 300 ml hot water to soften it, remove stem and cut into thin strips. Retain the water used for soaking)
• 50 grammes dried shrimps (pre-soaked in 100 ml water for about 5 minutes. Remove dried shrimps and retain the water used for soaking)
• Water for boiling
• ¾ rice bowl measure of white rice (rinsed)
• 5 shallots (sliced finely)
• 4 tablespoons palm oil

Seasoning

• 1 ½ tablespoons light soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method
Fry shallots in oil till golden brown. Remove fried shallots and set aside. Remove oil separately into a bowl.
Bring a pot of water to boil and add belly pork. As the water starts reboiling, remove scum from surface till no more scum appears. Remove pork and allow to cool. Cut the pork into small pieces (just like the mushroom strips), retaining the fat.
Heat up 2 tablespoons of the shallot oil. Add pre-soaked mushrooms and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add pre-soaked dried prawns. Continue stir-frying for another minute or so till aromatic.
Add belly pork strips and stir well for about a minute. Next, add rice and continue stirring well whilst adding seasoning. Add the water previously used to soak mushrooms and dried prawns. Once rice is evenly coated with seasoning, remove and place into a rice cooker.
Add more water to cover rice mixture completely with about 1 cm above the surface of the rice. Switch on the rice cooker. Once rice starts to boil, add pre-fried yam and cover. Allow it to cook till done.
If you are cooking in the pot / wok, add water to cover the rice mixture, reduce heat to low, cover and allow it to cook slowly, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Cook till rice is fully cooked.
Serve the Yam Rice with a sprinkle of fried shallots and scallions / spring onions.