Good evening from Thailand! 🥰 This Thursday, I prepared a ham-infused rice dish for dinner. My method involves stir-frying uncooked rice with ham and seasonings, adding water, and then cooking it in a rice cooker. This allows the flavors to fully absorb into each grain of rice, making it incredibly fragrant and delicious. I ate it with a homemade dipping sauce that's tangy, salty, and slightly sweet, which pairs perfectly with the ham rice. Here are the details.
🍚 Ingredients (for the rice)
200 grams Ham
220 grams Uncooked Jasmine Rice
270 grams Water (for cooking)
2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 tbsp Coarsely Chopped Garlic
2 tbsp Sliced Old Ginger
1 tbsp Granulated Sugar
2 tbsp Oyster Sauce
3 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tsp Ground White Pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
3 tbsp Sliced Spring Onion (for garnish)
Fried Garlic Chips (for garnish)
🌶️ Ingredients (for the dipping sauce)
10 grams of Thai Garlic, peeled
10 grams of Red chilies
2 Coriander Roots
3 tbsp Lime Juice
2 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tbsp Granulated Sugar
🫕 Procedure
Prepare the ham by cutting it into small pieces, about 1-inch in size.
Heat a pan on the stove over medium heat. Add a little oil, then put in the chopped ham. Stir-fry until the ham is cooked through, then scoop it out onto a plate and set aside.
In the same pan , add the remaining vegetable oil. Turn the stove back on to low heat, and add the chopped garlic and sliced ginger. Stir-fry them briefly until fragrant and golden.
Add the washed and drained uncooked rice to the pan. Stir-fry the rice, coating it in the oil, until it becomes slightly shiny.
Season the rice with oyster sauce, light soy sauce, salt, sugar, and white pepper.
Add half of the reserved cooked ham back into the pan. Stir-fry everything together until well combined, then turn off the heat.
Transfer the rice and all the seasonings from the pan into the rice cooker pot. Add the water. Stir gently to combine. Cook using the standard 'white rice' setting.
While the rice is cooking, prepare the dipping sauce: In a mortar, pound the garlic and coriander roots together until fine. Add the fresh chilies and a pinch of salt, then pound into a coarse paste.
Transfer to a small bowl. Add the fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice. Stir well to combine and dissolve the sugar.
Once the rice cooker finishes, use a rice paddle to gently fluff and mix the rice. Let it rest in the pot, covered, for about 10 minutes.
After resting, add the sliced spring onions to the pot and gently mix them into the rice. Your ham-infused rice is now ready to serve!
To serve
Plate the rice. Top with the remaining reserved ham, fried garlic chips, and extra spring onions. Enjoy with the prepared dipping sauce on the side.
This ham-infused rice recipe is less oily and has a savory, slightly salty taste. Pairing it with the dipping sauce is an absolute delight! It might look like fried rice, but it's much more flavorful because the seasonings are infused into each grain.
