We Went to Hong Kong’s Number 1 Clay Pot Rice Spot | Street Food Tour with Lucas Sin | Bon Appétit

We're here on Temple Street, we're here to eat

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at Hingay and the chef says he's about to put 20 of them on the stove at the same time, so let's take a look at what's going on. Let's see if I go, oh yeah, okay, welcome to The Clay Pot kitchen. This is FICO. FICO is a chef who has been here basically for 20 years and this restaurant has been open for 43 years. They haven't changed the way they prepare The Clay. Rice cooker, this is 20 at a time, it's like a design, it's like a double layer xylophone, first things first, it's putting everything on super high heat.

Water enters. The nice thing about this crock pot is that it heats up very quickly and then you will reduce the flame to try to get that delicious fondue with that crispy

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bottom. The reason you can only eat Clay Pot rice like this in Hong Kong is because what you are tasting is technique and craftsmanship in every decision the Chef makes. their philosophy and their sense of style are summed up in that pot of rice and it's so technical, man, like they've been here for over 40 years and every pot is that good, if you come here, man, these are all the ingredients , one of my favorite things about Clay Pot rice is that it is completely customizable.

Whatever you want on top of rice, you can get different color-coded orders. 60 types of rice dressings. I think they have them here, some of them are a little new, as you'll see later. cured meat, sausages, bacon, this place is hung, they specialize in a type of river sausage that has foie gras in it, it's actually a sticky slipper. The first step is that the rice is partially cooked and that rice has finished absorbing all that water, so it will reduce the boost. of the cook and each and every ingredient is going to hit 20 at the same time, it's actually incredibly ridiculous, here's the bottom line: Clay Pot rice comes down to a matter of philosophy and style, every component of rice The Clay Pot because it is so simple dish can be changed and different chefs will have different approaches.

Clay Pot rice is an ecosystem, which means that as it cooks slowly, the steam will rise to the surface and begin to cook the meat and the flavorful toppings and all of that will slowly drip down as fat in the form of of flavor and in the form of umami. It's moving the crock pot to the other side of the burner where it's a little less hot so you can get started. When building that crispy rice bottom, think of the bottom of the crock pot in quadrants, so you'll move it four times to make it very uniform.

You will get as much crispy bottom as possible. You'll see that black buildup at the bottom that's actually flavor, all that hot air will seep through this semi-porous crock pot. Experts would say that the first thing is to capture the flavor of the rice inside this pot, but secondly, it is also about creating a myriad of textures: there is the fluffy, fragrant rice. On top is a rice that is almost filled with a surge of oil and flavor from the toppings. I drip it and then there's this crunchy thing at the bottom. Now is the last stage.

The important thing here is that the Clay Pot rice is not finished. cook after removing it from the heat because it needs to sit for about a minute or two after garnish, it will just settle so that all the juices settle to the bottom of the pot so that the rice has the right flavor and as the temperature begins to Go down a bit, all those flavors will end up blending together, you also need the residual heat in The Clay Pot to create that final crunchy texture at the bottom of the pot. I like to win, here he comes like an absurd Chef. running back to make sure the other 20 are okay.

I ordered the beef empanada with a raw egg on top, which is a classic, and the second one I ordered was a yellow eel with white eel and foie gras. Goose liver sausage, let's talk. About the rice, my opinion is that jasmine rice should be soaked because it needs to be cooked quickly, otherwise the inside of the rice might become like Al Dente, which is not good for Chinese salad rice. Some people say that it is generally a short grain rice. from northern China or Japan might be a little more fragrant; Some people think that long grain jasmine rice, which is what Hong Kong people like, is a little more flavorful and might have a little better texture, according to some people. mixes here make thai jasmine rice once it gets to the table you're not supposed to open it buddy you're supposed to let it sit for a minute because everything is still cooking that heat is critical right now any of those as the flavor particles are too excited inside to calm down a bit and seep into each other, so we'll sit patiently for about a minute and not open this as badly as you want.

This thumbnail taken overseas you see that space in the ear which means the rice has absorbed all that liquid as it's cooking and then as it's cooking it starts to dry out and dry out and dry out and since it's separated a little bit like that then you know that It is crispy if you put oil on it it would have been fried yes, it would be crispy it tastes like oil, this is very special. Clay pot rice emits this mating call to the people of Hong Kong once it starts to get cold, the first gust that rises across Victoria Harbor people start shouting and clamoring for

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pot rice which It's soy sauce, the soul of The Crock Pot Rice, we're just going to mix all this together, it's not just soy sauce from the bottle, it's seasoned soy sauce, it has sugar, it makes it with sautéed aromatics, a bunch of ginger, garlic, onion, those kind of secret spices. the heat from the rice will help the egg steam, help it finish cooking.

It's almost like a colonic response where there's a little bit of ginger and onion inside that soy sauce. It's like transporting the flavors of ginger and scallions and things into the rice like tricks, everything he is like brings out all those flavors very high quality beef one thing we Hong Kongers like about the beef and pork burgers in general is that we like to move them, we like to mix a lot the texture is developed by spreading those protein chains and all you do is mix and mix and work and work and work to make it a little bit like the The inside of a dumpling, a bit like a bouncy meatball, is such a technical dish.

I feel like maybe Chef is putting it on today. I know it's good. It's not supposed to be that good. The whole choice of ingredients is that it needs to have enough fat. Eel is a perfect fish for this if you use it like tilapia or whatever. It doesn't have this effect because the fat doesn't drip, it doesn't flavor the rice, you get that toasty tone from the jasmine rice and then you get a little bit of that fat that came out of that eel, that fat that just drips all over everything. It's captured within this ecosystem within this environment that's like goose liver, it's quite fatty.

To be honest, I like it more than Fargo. I can't wait to get to the bottom of it. Ready beef isn't that ridiculous. This is such a show. outside of the technique, it is as flexible as a texture. Delight, the rice has absorbed all this moisture. It is taking so much patience and so much effort to get all the water out of the rice, so that only the flavor of the rice is left. Now there are two philosophies. Some people mix in the crunch. Which inside the chef says is a bad idea, it should be two dishes, first everything on top of the fluffy texture of the rice and then go for the crunchy because it needs time to develop, this is what you are supposed to end up with just the bottom part of the rice and you're supposed to eat this as the last bite, that's a little bit more.

Delight, you have a lot of people in the comments probably saying: I've seen better crispy rice, have you heard of tadig, where we cook it with yogurt? and oil part of my pronunciation. Have you seen paella where there was a lot of oil without oil? When I was 16 I started cooking in Hong Kong. I had the audacity to call myself The Clay Pot kid because in Cantonese you know how Like Rappers has a rapper. names some chefs have Curious Cook Chef Momofu Names Whatever's Lucky Peach Mine when I was a kid was The Clay Pot because this is the first dish I learned to cook and honestly, it might be my favorite dish in Hong Kong This is not the oyster pancakes episode, but it could be a huge fried house aisle, fresh oysters properly, mix them with the batter, pour in the oil, start frying and then drizzle a little more batter on top to make this bottom crispy, you know?

What my mom used to say, she used to talk about the way I eat, she always makes other people hungry.