Rice & Fried Rice · Chinese home cooking
Rice Cooker Eggplant and Pork Rice
Rinsed jasmine rice cooked in a rice cooker under soy-glazed minced pork and soft purple eggplant, with garlic, scallion and a little sesame oil folded through at the end.
About this dish
The appeal of a rice-cooker meal is the sound near the end: a low click, then the faint hiss of steam easing from the vent as the grains absorb the last liquid. Here the eggplant and pork are browned first in a wok, so the cooker only has to steam them together. Eggplant collapses into a soft, almost jammy layer and its purple skin bleeds faint colour into the pale rice. Garlic and oyster sauce give a rounded smell that rises the moment you lift the lid.
Before you start
Equipment: Rice cooker, Wok. Tap the ingredient checkboxes as you go.
Method
7 steps · tick each one off as you finish it.
Rinse the rice
Rinse 270 g of rice under cold water off the heat for 60 seconds until the runoff runs clear, then drain 2 minutes. It is done when the grains look chalky and no starchy water clouds the bowl.
Brown pork and garlic
Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wok over high heat for 45 seconds until it shimmers, then add 20 g of garlic and 250 g of pork. Stir 3 minutes until the meat loses its pink colour and the garlic smells nutty.
Soften the eggplant
Add 300 g of eggplant batons to the wok over medium heat for 4 minutes, turning often, until the skins darken to purple and the flesh slumps. You know they are ready when a spoon presses through with no resistance.
Glaze the topping
Stir in 2 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 1 tsp of sugar over low heat for 60 seconds. The mixture is ready when a dark glaze clings to the eggplant and no thin liquid pools in the pan.
Load the cooker
Tip the rice into the rice cooker with 320 ml of water and 1 tbsp of soy sauce over the low heat setting for 10 seconds, then spread the eggplant and pork on top without stirring. Wait until the liquid covers the grains.
Run the cycle
Close the lid and cook 270 g of rice on the standard cycle for 35 minutes over the cooker's automatic heat, then rest 10 minutes off the heat. You can tell it is done when the switch clicks and steam stops escaping from the vent.
Fold and serve
Drizzle 1 tsp of sesame oil and scatter 40 g of scallion over the rice off the heat, then fold gently for 30 seconds. It is ready to serve when the grains are separate and the purple eggplant streaks through them.
Tips that matter
- Salt the eggplant batons with 1 tsp of salt for 10 minutes and pat them dry so they brown instead of steaming into a grey mush.
- Do not stir the topping into the raw rice; keeping it on the surface lets the grains cook evenly while the pork juices drip down.
Easy variations
- Swap the pork for 200 g of sliced shiitake and add 1 tbsp of oil, keeping the same 4-minute sear over medium heat.
- Add 1 tsp of chilli bean paste with the oyster sauce over low heat for a deeper, spicier glaze across the eggplant.
Questions that come up
Why is the rice at the bottom still hard?
The water sat below the 2-cup line or the topping was stirred in too early. Add 40 ml of hot water, close the lid and run one more 10-minute cycle.
Can I use a regular pot?
Yes, bring 320 ml of water to a boil, cover, then simmer on the lowest heat for 18 minutes and rest 10 minutes off the heat.
Nutrition, roughly
| Energy | 480 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 20 g |
| Carbohydrate | 60 g |
| Fat | 16 g |
Estimated per serving from standard ingredients, rounded. Treat it as a guide, not clinical data.
Rice, Water and Heat: A Ratio Field Guide
Why one cup of rice does not always want one cup of water, and how to tell a cooked pot from a steamed one before you lift the lid.
