Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Lo Mai Kai 糯米雞 Glutinous Rice Wrapped In Lotus Leaf



One of the tummies took me out for yumcha at our favourite Chinese restaurant at the Spring street end of Little Bourke street yesterday. The restaurant was buzzing despite being a Monday afternoon, but the service was still wonderful and we were even given some delicious deserts at the end(that was the reward for being very loyal customers for the past decade :))
One of the dishes that we order every time we are there is of course glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf.  I decided there and then I would make this the next day. As a little boy I would volunteer to cycle to my neigbour's house and ask permission to harvest the fresh lotus leaves whenever we were making this at home. Without fail I would be given some beautiful lotus flowers (for the altars) and delicious lotus roots as well. Lotus leaves add a wonderful aroma to this dish and fortunately the dry leaves you can get from the Asian grocers work just as well. A yum cha favourite but it's also sold in every coffee shops in Malaysia and Singapore together with steamed buns of every kind. 
I soaked the rice before leaving for work in the morning, picked up a few things from the grocer on my way home and dinner was ready in an hour :)
P.S I also made some chili oil (Cantonese version) to go with the rice, and of course a simple stir fried kailan.

makes 6
for the filling you'll need;
1/2 kg of chicken drumsticks, cut into 3 each
6 large Chinese dried mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and halved
oyster sauce
soy
sesame oil
minced garlic
corn flour
Chinese cooking wine
salt and pepper to taste
2 Chinese sausage, sliced
10g of dried shrimps, soaked for 10 minutes, drained and lightly fried
3 salted egg yolks or 3 hard boiled eggs, halved
Marinate chicken pieces for 20 minutes with with dash of soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil, grated ginger and corn flour.
Fry minced garlic with a little oil, add chicken pieces and fry til no longer pink. Add oyster sauce, a dash of dark soy, Chinese cooking wine, salt and pepper follow by the soaked mushrooms. Continue to fry til sauce thicken slightly. Set aside.

For the rice you'll need;
500g of glutinous rice, soaked for at least 5 hours, drained
dash of soy
dash of sugar
dash of sesame oil
white pepper to taste
600ml of water
Steam rice in a lotus leaves lined steamer for 20 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients when it's cool enough to handle. Mix well and set aside.
7 large dried lotus leaves, blanched in boiling water for 10 minutes, rinse and drained and halved.

Place some rice on a piece of lotus leaf, add chicken pieces, mushrooms, dried shrimps and Chinese sausage.

Add a little more rice on top of the filling.

Place parcels into a steamer and steam on high heat for 30 minutes.

erved this with fried kailan with oyster sauce and chili oil.

24 comments:

  1. One of my favourite at the yum cha, must try this at home!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have never tried any home-made lomaigai before!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks impressive!! I think I'm too much a lazy cook for this :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. i will eat all the liao, not the rice :P

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Kathy R! Please do!!

    Kenny if only this is so easily available I wouldn't have made it too :)

    Thanks BIBI! It's actually not that difficult.

    Thanks Chow and Chatter!

    Why not the rice Cumi & Ciki? :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh this was my favourite food for breakfast when I was a child but somehow not anymore.... I prefer to go for something lighter and smaller in serving size at the restaurants when we go for our regular " yum cha " session , thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe !

    ReplyDelete
  7. Haha A Full-Timed Housefly we are a little greedy and this was served as a one meal dish. I still order this as yum cha though :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Our yum cha favourite!! might leave this to the yum cha sessin next time :) I'm going to try making the Hainanese dish tonight, wish me luck!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Haha seems like this is everyone's yum cha favourite!! I must try to make this to impress my gf soon! cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Good luck with the Hainanese dish love to eat !! :)

    Fitzboy that is a very good idea!! ":)

    ReplyDelete
  11. WOW! This is my favourite~~can't wait to have this!!
    To show my appreciation for your support, please pick the Award from my place.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Not only does this sound delicious, it is a GORGEOUS dish!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks Anncoo!! :)

    Thanks Donna! hopefully you'll try making it too!

    ReplyDelete
  14. We fight over this every time we go yum cha! I'll try to make some soon.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Whoa ... that's a lot of work .. but the result looks outstanding! Very impressive!

    ReplyDelete
  16. This is a must order for me when we go for dim sum. It is very frustrating when they don't turn out good. I think it's high time I make my own. Yours look very delicious here. The parcels look so neat. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I like Chinese food but never tried such a dish before.
    It looks great.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I love lo mai kai!! Haven't had this for a long long time.. you now remind me this :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Please do Michele!

    Thanks Muneeba! It is worth all the work put in!

    You are welcome Mary! Often the best result is when we have to make it ourself unfortunately haha!

    Thanks Abhilash!

    Haha mycookinghut bet you would have everything in your pantry already :)

    ReplyDelete
  20. WOW! This is one of my all time favorite dishes! I love the flavor that the lotus leaf imparts.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Fresh Local and Best, I love the aroma too, you get the first taste of it when you blanch the leaves in hot water :)

    ReplyDelete
  22. What are Chinese sausages?

    ReplyDelete
  23. chinese sausage is a cured sweet salami like sausage available at asian grocer or asian butcher, it's called lap cheong in chinese 臘腸。 hope u r able to find it.

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a note. I love to know what you think!

press me

3 hungry tummies

My photo
melbourne, victoria, Australia

linkwithin