Hong Kong-Style Crispy Rice Skillet

This dish is traditionally made in a clay pot with Cantonese cured meats like lap cheong (cured pork sausage, gon cheong (duck liver sausage), and lap yuk (cured pork belly) nestled in a bed of rice and drizzled with a sweet, seasoned soy sauce right before serving. Many believe the real prize is the thin layer of crispy rice at the bottom of the pot, but it can be difficult to achieve constantly at home, especially if you've never cooked in a clay pot before or don't have one. The pot's relatively small footprint also means the amount of crispy rice can be disappointingly limited. This version uses a cast-iron skillet (or a nonstick pan) for more surface area to crisp up the rice, so you don't have to fight for a piece of it!

This recipe was excerpted from ‘The Woks of Life’ by Bill, Judy, Sarah, and Kaitlin Leung. Buy the full book on Amazon.