Pumpkin Rice, a taste of Yellow

This post is my entry for the food event LiveSTRONG With A Taste Of Yellow - 2008. I don’t have the yellow wristband, so I can’t participate in the photo competition (awww ), but I will still like to participate in this good cause by blogging on a dish with an ‘yellow element’ anyway.

And my yellow element is brought out by … pumpkin!!

This dish has a bright yellow hue when cooked, thanks to the pumpkin, so it looks bright and cheery. The recipe is from my friend koalabear, and I made small changes to her recipe by changing the bacon to pork belly (because my supermarket only sell vacuum-prepacked bacon which I don’t like), shitake to portebello mushrooms (I don’t really like shitake - again, another personal bias =x), and added in some salted fish which I bought to cook beansprouts with salted fish dish (btw, see last photo of beansprouts page, where I use leftover pumpkin to cook beansprouts). And you’re right bear, the method is quite similar to cooking cabbage rice.

Believe you me, this dish is delicious! The buttery aroma of the rice blended perfectly with the sweet taste of pumpkin (which is nicely mashed & melted when cooked) and the result is just … heavenly. Thanks koalabear, for your wonderful recipe, it’s bearie nice!! hehe I have a lot to learn from u! =D

Pumpkin Rice
(with pork stripes, wolfberries, portebello mushrooms, salted fish and butter)

Ingredients
(Serves 3)

- A small piece of pumpkin, skin removed & cut to small cubes (about 150g without skin)
- 100g pork belly (aka sam cham bak, 3-layered pork, 3层肉), cut to thin stripes (can substitute with bacon)
- 2 portebello mushrooms (or a few shitake mushrooms) - cut to cubes (but not too thin)
- 1 tbsp chopped garlic
- Half large onion, chopped
- 1 1/4 cup of rice, washed
- Water to cook the rice*
- 20g butter
- 1 tbsp wolfberries
- 10g salted fish, cut to small bits

* ratio of about 1 cup rice to slightly under 1.5 cups of water - may vary with different rice cooker

Directions

(see picture, row by row, left to right)

1. Fry pork slices in wok.
2. When pork is entirely cooked on the surface, take out and set aside on a plate.
3. Heat butter in wok.
4. Saute garlic, onions and salted fish till fragrant. Then add pumpkin, mushrooms and stir fry for a short while.
5. Add uncooked rice and fry till the onions are clear.
6. Add the stuff from the wok, wolfberries, and the previously cooked pork, to the rice cooker. Wait for mixture to cool first (about 15 minutes)*.
7. Add water. Cook in rice cooker.
8. After rice is cooked, stir and gently mash up pumpkin. Keep warm for a few minutes before serving.
9. Garnish & serve.

* - If your rice cooker operates by sensing temperature, you have to wait for the mixture to cool first b4 cooking in the rice cooker.

Tagged as: butter, mushroom, pork, Rice, salted fish, wolfberry