This is my dad's recipe for Cantonese Sticky Rice,
or laap mei no mai faan,
and it’ll always remind me of how much my dad loves me.
Back when I was in college,
whenever I visited home,
my dad used to freeze 20 pound batches of this
for me to bring back to school
because he wanted me to eat well
and focus on studying.
There are lots of recipes out there,
and my dad’s version is a delicious balance of the chewiest sticky rice
paired with the juiciest, umami-filled bits of pork belly,
Chinese sausage, and other surprises that we’ll get to later.
First, we’ll learn my dad’s simple tricks to preparing the sticky rice.
For today's sticky rice, we're using 4 oz of jasmine rice
mixed with 20 oz of glutinous rice.
This keeps the rice from getting overly soft.
Lots of people say to soak the glutinous rice for several hours
before steaming it,
Steam it, then stir-fry it.
I like to simplify it.
I'll just use the rice cooker to cook it, then stir-fry it.
I'm using 20 oz of glutinous rice.
One of these cups is about 6 oz
so I'll have about 3.5 cups of glutinous rice.
Wash the rice.
Like always, we’ll wash the rice 3 times,
pouring out the starchy water and using fresh water each time.
Pour out the used water.
All right, the rice is washed.
Pour it out
and use this colander to drain the water.
It also helps the rice absorb some moisture.
Then they'll cook more easily too.
"Does the rice need to be soaked overnight if I'm using an Instant Pot?"
No! I think that would be really mushy.
We'll put it just to the side.
Dried shrimp.
Wash the dried shrimp.
Give it a rinse.
We’ll wash 1 oz of dried shrimp once.
Rinse them with some water.
Then drain the water.
Now, after washing them,
soak them in some warm water.
That'll help them soften up faster.
They'll be easier to stir-fry, right?
Let them soak.
We have 1 oz of shiitake mushrooms.
They look like this after rehydrating.
Let me show you how to rehydrate them.
Take the dried mushrooms.
give them a wash with cold water.
Now we’ll do the same wash and soak process
with the dried shiitake mushrooms.
After they're washed,
soak them in warm water.
That way, they'll be ready in a few minutes.
Use a plate to cover it like this
and they'll soften up very quickly.
After about 10-15 minutes of soaking the dried shiitake mushrooms,
they should be rehydrated and ready to cut.
Slice the mushrooms into strips.
We’ll first cut the mushrooms into thin slices.
Then dice them.
Then rotate 90 degrees to dice them into small pieces.
"How can you make this vegetarian?"
Just don't add meat.
Shiitake mushrooms, peanuts, what else?
As long as it's not too wet.
But a lot of flavor comes from the dried shrimp and Chinese sausage.
This rice takes a lot of flavor from the BBQ meat, Chinese sausage,
dried shrimp, and the dried mushrooms.
If you skip them, this flavor you taste will be gone,
it'll be a different flavor.
Chinese broccoli stems, dried turnip, peanuts,
those will be vegetarian.
Choose the kind of vegetables that contain less water.
Now that we’re done cutting the mushrooms,
we’ll move on to cutting our cured meats.
Let's cut the cured pork belly.
We have 2 oz.
If you don't have it, go ahead and buy it at the supermarket.
Did you make this?
Yes, I did! Take a look.
This is cured pork belly.
I cured it in the sun myself.
What kind of meat is it?
Pork belly.
You can see the strips of pork belly.
My dad calls this dish 臘味糯米飯 laap mei no mai faan.
臘味 laap mei means cured or preserved meats
and describes two of our ingredients today,
臘腸 laap coeng, or Chinese sausage,
and 臘肉 laap juk, or cured pork belly,
which my dad makes himself.
The practice of curing meats with salt goes back centuries in China
and while it was often done to preserve excess food
or to make food travel-friendly,
it's now done for the unique and desirable
savory flavor of the cured meats.
My dad’s personal opinion is that
you cannot make Cantonese sticky rice without Chinese sausage
because it is so essential to the flavors of this dish.
Let's chop it up,
starting with the cured pork belly.
Be careful when you cut cured pork belly, as it's very hard.
It's easy for your knife to slip.
We’ll cut the lap juk into strips first.
Grasp it with your hand like this when you're cutting.
Press it down.
When you're cutting something, you always have to hold it down, right?
Then, dice into small pieces.
Small dice.
Then we’ll rotate to dice just like the mushrooms.
Chop up the Chinese sausage the same way.
What kind of Chinese sausage is it?
We're using the Kam Yen Jan brand.
What kind of meat is it?
Pork.
Only pork?
Yes, just pork.
If you like the one with chicken, you can buy that one too.
What's the difference?
There's not much difference, it's up to you.
If you like the one with chicken mixed in,
use the one with chicken mixed in.
It's not a big deal.
Up to your own preferences.
This is Chinese sausage.
Now that we’re done dicing the meats,
we’ll move on to preparing our aromatics.
2 cloves of garlic.
First we’ll peel two cloves of garlic.
Then we’ll smash and mince them.
The cilantro and green onions are for garnish,
so we're going to cut them with a clean knife and cutting board.
We don't need a lot.
We’re using 5-10 pieces of green onion
with an equal amount of cilantro here.
You can cut this with scissors or chop with a knife.
To save time, we’ll first cut the longest parts
of the cilantro and green onions in half
and bunch them together so we can dice them all at the same time.
Of course, if you don't like cilantro, then skip it.
Just use green onion.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
Whatever you'd like to add,
if you want to add shrimp, or chicken, that's great too!
It's all up to you.
The ingredients are ready, so let's cook the rice.
I'm using the rice cooker to cook it.
I'm going to use hot water to cook the rice.
It's going to cook the rice faster.
Rice that's cooked faster will be less soft.
It'll have more bite to it.
This is 16 oz.
When you cook rice, add some salt
and a dash of dark soy sauce.
This way, the rice will absorb the flavor better.
when it's cooked, the rice will turn out yellow,
so when you stir-fry it, the color will be very uniform.
1 tsp of dark soy sauce.
1 tsp of salt.
After it's mixed in,
pour the rice in.
This is not enough water.
We had 16 oz earlier.
How much are you adding now?
We're adding another 6 oz.
It should be just about right.
Then, put the rice in.
To summarize, we’ve added 22 fl oz
of piping hot water to a rice cooker,
then mixed in 1 tsp each of dark soy sauce and salt.
Then we added our washed rice,
which was 20 oz of glutinous and 4 oz of regular rice.
Start cooking the rice.
Let's start the rice.
In Chinese tradition, Sticky Rice,
or 糯米飯 no mai faan in Cantonese,
is believed to have a warming effect on the body.
It’s a dim sum staple,
but just as often, it’s made at home,
(or in large batches for college students away from home).
Anecdotally, for me, my wife, and many other Chinese Americans,
sticky rice is often served during Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
Lo Mai Fan sounds and tastes similar to another classic, Lo Mai Gai.
Both use glutinous rice as a base,
but generally sticky rice doesn’t have chicken or salted egg,
and it’s simply stir-fried
rather than wrapped with lotus leaves and steamed.
Both are delicious, but this dish requires much less work and time.
Now once the rice is done cooking,
we’re ready to stir-fry our ingredients.
Now, turn on the stove.
To the highest heat.
When the pan is hot, or after about 30 seconds,
we’ll add the oil.
1 tbsp of oil.
Give it a swirl.
Once the oil ripples, or after about 40-50 seconds,
we’ll add the garlic.
Add the garlic first.
After 10 seconds, we’ll add the dried shrimp.
Dried shrimp.
After another 10 seconds, we’ll add our meats.
Chinese sausage and cured pork belly both go in.
After cooking for another 30 seconds,
we’ll add the mushrooms.
Add the mushrooms.
Stir-fry it all together.
Could you add everything at once?
You need to release the aromas of the dried shrimp first.
Release the aromatic flavor into the oil.
"What ingredients do you have to have?"
Dried shrimp and Chinese sausage. You can skip mushrooms.
Take your time to cook everything through.
We’ll stir fry everything for another minute
before adding our seasoning.
After the Chinese sausage and cured pork belly are fragrant,
add some light soy sauce.
1 tsp.
1 tsp of dark soy sauce.
Davis from Patreon asked,
"What is your ratio of meat to rice?
I always add too much meat."
It's hard to pin down a ratio.
If you like meat, add more meat.
Like I always say, cook it the way you like it.
It all depends.
Just your preference.
Scoop them up.
After cooking with the seasoning for another 40-50 seconds,
we’ll put our cooked ingredients onto a plate for later.
Put it here.
Now, we'll start to fry the rice.
There's some oil left on the side from stir-frying the other ingredients.
Wipe it up.
Then it won't drip under the wok.
It's hard to wash oil that's dripped underneath.
With our ingredients done cooking,
we’ll prepare our cooked rice for stir-frying.
First, we’ll stir our rice around with chopsticks
to make sure the seasoning we added earlier is well mixed.
Now, add some oil.
Sticky rice is no good without oil.
1 tbsp.
"Why do you soak rice with oil?"
The oil will keep the rice from sticking together.
Both ways work.
You can mix oil with uncooked rice,
or you can add oil to fully cooked rice like me
to loosen it up.
The results are the same.
High heat.
1 tbsp of oil.
Add the rice in.
Once the oil is hot, we’ll add in our rice.
Separate the rice.
The good thing about adding the dark soy sauce earlier
is that there's already good color on it now, see?
Stir-fry it patiently,
until it's aromatic.
Make it smell great.
Make sure to constantly move the rice as it’s cooking,
so it fries evenly.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
After stir-frying our rice for a minute and a half,
we’ll have a taste test.
See if the rice is flavorful enough.
We'll add another tablespoon of light soy sauce here.
1 tbsp.
Once we’ve mixed in the soy sauce,
or about another 30 seconds,
we’re ready to add our cooked ingredients from earlier.
All right, lower the heat.
Let's add the ingredients that we stir-fried earlier.
Some of it goes on top.
My dad is saving some
to put on top of the dish when we serve it,
and now we’ll mix it all together.
"Can you make it entirely with a rice cooker?"
Stir-fry the ingredients first, and then mix it into the rice cooker.
Mix it all in there, and then you won't have to fry it.
You don't fry it?
Don't fry it, just mix it in.
Oh, right.
It won't be as fragrant.
That's true.
That's the way my mom cooked Sticky Rice when I was young.
Use chopsticks to loosen it up.
We’re stir-frying the sticky rice to crisp and caramelize it a bit
but you can also do this entirely in a rice cooker.
My dad uses chopsticks here
because it’s easier to mix the smaller ingredients into the rice.
We’re also on a lower heat now so we don’t burn it.
This is low heat.
We're just mixing it together on low heat.
It's already very fragrant.
Sometimes it's hard to mix the ingredients all together though, isn't it?
When you stir-fry the ingredients, they should have a bit of liquid,
As the liquid mixes with the rice
and provides some moisture, the rice loosens up
and it's easy to mix the meat in.
Yeah, it can't be totally dry.
Sometimes the pot is too big,
you can separate it into portions
to make it easy to mix.
An amount this big is hard to mix.
In other recipe videos, it's a very small serving.
Those are easy to mix.
Once the meat is mixed into the rice, it's ready.
You just have to loosen the rice up.
After two and a half minutes of stir-frying with the ingredients,
we’ll add the cilantro and green onion.
Mix in the cilantro and green onion, and it'll be so fragrant!
We’ll reserve some to put on top as a garnish later.
Now, we’ll mix it all in.
With the greens all mixed in, we’re ready to plate.
And don’t forget to add the stir-fried ingredients on top.
And, of course, the garnish.
Now, let’s hear if my parents had this dish when they were kids.
Hong Doy, time to eat!
Did you eat sticky rice when you were kids?
Yes!
But not with this many ingredients.
What did you have in yours?
Cured meats, and I remember my mom added peanuts.
Some dried shrimp, green onions, things like that.
No dried mushrooms.
Our Cantonese Sticky Rice is complete!
I hope everyone enjoys it!
Cheers!
Can you say "Lo Mai Fan"?
Yeah! So close!
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