菜饭 "Cai Fan" - Shanghai Shabby Rice /w Bacon - Vegetable Rice.

Rice was originally domesticated and cultivated in China, likely around 14,000 - 10,000 years ago, and there is fossil evidence in a cave around 600km south west of Shanghai showing that rice was cultivated 8000 years ago. This cultivation likely started from dropped seeds that grew near where rice was threshed. 

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Early rice is a far cry from the large grained, easily harvested rice of today, but more grass like, with tiny seeds. Early man must have only gathered and eaten this rice as a fall back, emergency food during the last glacial period when prey was scarce. Wheat was similarly domesticated 12,000 years ago in the fertile crescent, likely in a similar manner due to similar environmental circumstances. 

Traditional 菜饭

Shanghai 菜饭 (vegetable rice, colloquially known as  寒酸饭, or "shabby" rice, was a struggle meal, likely with it's orgins lost to time, but more recently eaten (when available) during the Asian holocaust, or the Great Chinese famine. 

Anecdotally, it was made by stretching scarce rice with diced wild vegetables and lard, and cooked normally as a "shabby meal". 

Wild vegetables would have included purslane (马齿苋machixian) or pigweed, dandelion (蒲公英pugongying), shepherd’s purse (荠菜jicai), field sow’s thistle (蓟草jicao), ferns (蕨类juelei), daisy leaves and stems (菊花菜juhuacai), or my personal favourite, Ma Lan Tou (马兰头). 

Another source, shows that the dish originated from 安徽黄山歙县 Anhui Shexian Country in Huangshan, and was introduced to shanghai during beginning of 百年耻辱, China's Century of Humiliation, where the Port of Shanghai was forcibly opened at the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing.

The increase of economic activity in Shanghai lead to an influx of migrant workers, who also brought with them their cuisine. An 1876 book 沪游杂记  (Shanghai Travel Notes) says that there were over 200 restaurants in Shanghai, with the first being one from Anhui, who  was said to have served a "set meal" called 菜饭骨头汤 or 咸肉菜饭骨头汤 - Vegetable rice with bone broth, or Salted meat with Vegetable Rice & Bone broth. Many restaurants can still be found selling "黄山菜饭骨头汤" in Shanghai, some admired for serving humble local food. 

This original dish is made by mixing salted meat stir fried with lard and vegetables with cooked rice, and served with a standard bone broth, made by boiling pork bones (probably with some meat) with soybeans for 2 hours, with the usual scallions, ginger and cooking wine. 

Modern Interpretation 

Taking some inspiration from another ancient rice dish (pilaf / pilau / pilav), here's a modern interpretation on the dish. By toasting the rice with the proteins / dry aromatics. 

The idea is to incorporate a large amount of bacon leafy green vegetables into our everyday meal. Personally, I try to eat 300g / 10 oz or more of leafy green vegetables a day, and found that this was a VERY tasty and easy way of incorporating it into a meal. It also freezes well for my meal-prep friends, and most importantly, leftovers make awesome fried rice. 

Proteins can be as little as you wish, in keeping with 

the small amount of salt pork / bacon / Cantonese sausage which is used to flavor the rice

Vegetarian Option

Vegetarians can do a modified version with mushrooms & mushroom powder instead of meat. If using dried Chinese mushrooms香菇 /Shiitake, you can use the soaking water for the mushrooms to cook the rice. 

Other aromatics can also be worked into this, depending on personal preference. This dish can be made with a wide variety of vegetables. 

This is less of a recipe, than a cooking method, or inspiration for your own creation.

Storage note

You can 100% do the stir frying part in a massive batch, then portion and freeze them. So you can just dump the pre-portioned rice into your preferred rice cooking container as normal. 

Ingredients: 

Diced Protein e.g.: 

腊肠 Chinese Sausage 1 link

Bacon - a few rashers

Char Siu

Salt Pork / Fish

Ham

Leftover stringy boiled chicken breast from making stock. 

Anchovies

Optional Aromatics

Garlic, Onions, Scallions, Ginger etc

Tiny Dried shrimp / conpoy (presoaked) 

Diced Mushrooms

Bamboo Shoots

Diced Vegetables - Feel free to add more

青菜 Bok Choy ( or any green leafy veg) - 200g.

Diced Carrots

Peas

Onions

Tomatoes

Salt vegetables (Chiu Chow style 菜饭)

Taro

Water Chestnut

Burdock root

Dried Plum

Rice - Other grains are also possible.

米 Rice - 90g

Other

Water or Broth - enough to cover rice, usually 20% less than normal. 

Salt / Chicken powder / Mushroom powder - to taste

 

Cooking Method 1

PREP

1) Dice everything. 

2) Presoak aromatics if necessary. 

COOKING

1) Sauté proteins with aromatics. Render oils from the proteins by starting with a cold pan if using fatty meats, otherwise use oil. 

Fried diced Cantonese 臘腸 Lap Cheung Sausage

2) Toast dry rice grains with proteins, until the rice grains turn white. 

3) Add diced vegetables, and stir fry till veg is wilted. 

4)  Dump everything into a rice cooker, top with water / broth until everything is barely submerged. 

5) Cook normally, serve as a rice. 

    

I added some rehydrated shrimps with this batch.
Made extra for some leftover fried rice later.

Cooking Method 2

This version soaks the rice before toasting, that makes up for the lack of nuttiness by simplifying the cooking process. Some people feel that pre-soaked rice taste better.

1) Gently stirfry diced proteins with aromatics and vegetables.
2) Add washed (pre-soaked preferably) rice to the stir fry, mixing well.
3) Dump everything into a rice cooker, top with water / broth until everything is barely submerged.
4) Cook normally.

Nutritional Information: 

腊肠 Chinese Sausage 1 link

青菜 Bok Choy ( or any green leafy veg) - 200g

米 Rice - 90g

Avocado oil - 10g

Makes two servings.