🍽️ Taishan Eel Rice

Rice fried with stripped eel, Qiaoxiang wok-hei.

Taishan Eel Rice is a classic claypot rice of the Jiangmen overseas-Chinese homeland. Local Taishan long-grain rice is cooked in a clay pot, while eel is cleaned, skinned and stir-fried with ginger, dried tangerine peel and soy sauce before being folded into the rice. At the table it is tossed with chopped scallion and hot oil; each grain is separate, glossy and savoury, carrying the sweet freshness of eel and a pronounced wok hei, while a golden crust of scorched rice lines the pot bottom. Tangerine peel and ginger cleverly remove any earthiness. A signature banquet dish of Taishan, it is best eaten hot straight from the claypot, capturing the river-fresh flavours of the Pearl River estuary.