Rice with Eel

Rice with Eel

　　　Rice cooked in a clay pot has become one of Enping’s everyday dishes, but rice with eel, which originated from Enping, is especially appealing due to its rustic charm. Though simple, making excellent rice with eel requires skill. Choose plump eels as thick as fingers—first debone and fillet them, then use the eel bones to make a rich broth, and then cook the rice in this broth; the eel meat is shredded into fine strands, seasoned, and added to the nearly cooked rice to be steamed until done.

　　Lift the lid, and a rich aroma of eel and rice wafts out. The rice inside the pot is golden and translucent, while the eel shreds are fine and slender. As you take a bite, just as the enticing presentation suggests, the grains of rice are perfectly paired with strands of eel, each mouthful infused with the delicate flavor of the eel.