Chinese Style Chilli Prawns and Rice in a Rice Cooker

Owing to health and safety regulations, the only cooking utensils we're permitted are a rice cooker, egg steamer and combination microwave oven (it can do grills and roasts). I try to use these tools to provide our staff with cheap healthy meals. Local dining establishments serve low quality, expensive food, that can have a noticeably negative impact on the afternoon performance of my staff.

This dish involves a delicious combination of chilli prawns and rice. Either raw or pre-cooked prawns can be used. Though raw prawns are better for absorbing flavour from the marinade. The end result is very similar to fried rice, though a wok is not required.

I shall not list quantities in the ingredients list as I just take a guess and chuck things into the pot. Just use a sensible estimate and experiment until you have the balance of flavours that you require.

Ingredients

Prawn Marinade:
ginger
garlic
chilli (powder, flakes or fresh)
sesame oil
light soya sauce

For the rest:

rice
water
onion
mushrooms
sweetcorn
peas
Bouillon vegetable stock
spring onion

Instructions

Prawn Marinade

Chop the ginger, garlic and chilli (if fresh) finely. Mix this with the sesame oil, light soya sauce and ground black pepper. Mix the prawns in the marinade and set aside in a fridge for a few hours. If I'm planning on serving lunch at 12pm, I'll normally prepare the beef at 9am.

Cooking

Rinse the rice in the rice cooker a few times, and fill with water until there's about a finger nail's breadth of water above the top of the rice. Add about half a teaspoon of vegetable stock to the rice,Chop the onion and mushrooms into small pieces.
Add all the vegetables (apart from the spring onion) to the rice.Add the marinaded prawns to the rice. Mix everything up. Turn on the rice cooker start cooking.
Chop up the spring onion.When the food is cooked (this normally takes about 30 minutes), turn off the rice cooker, add the chopped spring onion, and give it all another good stir.

My name is Jon C, and I am the office chef at dawjee.com.