Foodie

Monday, January 26, 2009

Lotus Leaf Rice/Chan Gee Kai/Pearly Wrap





A popular dish to be served during the Chinese New Year and a must have order in the Dim Sum restaurants. This dish is sometimes called Loh Mai Kai , Hor Yip Fun or Chan Chu Kai. To me, Loh Mai Kai's ingredients are pretty similar but it is not wrapped up with lotus leaves as in Hor Yip Fun and the meats used are in slices or chunks. This recipe below is called Pearly cos the meats used are all diced into tiny or mini cubes, making them look like Pearls.



Ingredients:

2 cups glutinuous or sticky rice - soak for at least 3 hours
1 cup normal rice
4 pieces chicken thighs, seasoned with five spice powder, sesame oil, Chinese wine, dark and light soya sauce, sugar and pepper.
5 Chinese dried mushroom - soaked and cut into cubes
11/4 cup dried shrimps, wash and soak
5 cloves garlics and 10 shallots - chopped
1 pair of Chinese sausage - diced into cubes
1 piece Lap Yoke - soak in hot water, then remove rind and diced into cubes
Enough Chicken Stock to cook the rice
Oil for frying
Lotus leaves for wrapping

Method:

Soak two lotus leaves till soft (takes a few hours).
Boil the lotus leaves in hot water. Wash the leaves under running water. Drain, dry and oil the leaves.
Heat wok with a little oil, fry the lap yoke and lap cheong , remove and leave aside..

Fry dried prawns till fragrant then add garlic and shallots .
Add in chicken, mushroom and all the ingredients including the rice. Continue to fry until the rice has been coated with oil.
Sprinkle chicken stock into the rice and continue stirring. Add some dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, pepper and continue to stir and add in more chicken stock until rice has soaked up all the stock and about half cooked (more stock will give a softer texture to the rice)
.
Let the rice cool a bit for easier handling
Put the lotus leave in a huge bowl, pour in the rice mixture. wrapped it up and cook in the pressure cooker. It may take very much longer if you steam in the conventional way but I with the pressure cooker, it takes only 10 minutes.






















































Serves

12 comments:

Kristy said...

Happy Chinese New Year to you and family. Wishing you good health and happiness!

Nate @ House of Annie said...

We were just thinking of doing that the other day. Ended up doing just claypot chicken rice instead.

Happy Niu Year!

Dayang said...

i love this,my mil like to cook for us especially cny,gong xi fa chai to you!

Anonymous said...

lily,
i am amateur to cooking... may i know what is lap yoke? thanks!

felicia

Unknown said...

felicia

'lap yoke' is a strip of belly pork marinated with soya sauce and wine, hang and wind dried. It is usually sold in the same aisle as chinese lap cheong(sausage).

it is still raw and has to be cooked before consuming

Happy Mrs Kwok said...

Hi Lily,

Can I know where to get lotus leaves?
It seems so hard for me to locate them at the wet market near my area.

Unknown said...

happy mrs kwok

since you mentioned wet market, i presume you must be from SEA. I don't really know if dried lotus leaves are available in the supermarkets there. I hope anyone reading this comment knows where it is available, here in denver, they are in most of the asian stores.

Anonymous said...

Hi Lily,

Cam across your wonderful site looking for a recipe.

I know you have aleay kind of answered this question but whn you say to add stock to boil the glutinous rice, is that the stock from the ingredients listed or do you think it is best to steam the rice just dry without adding water?


I love your cooking and please cook more nice chinese food.I thnk you are fantastic!

thank you

Angie said...

Hi Lily, I love your blog. I am going to make this for tomorrow night's dinner. However not really sure about the pressure cooker part.
After I wrap the rice in the lotus leave, do I just carefully put into the pressure cooker (no water needed) and press the Start button? (I have electric pressure cooker).
Or do I need to put in a rack in the pressure cooker then add a little water before I put the wrapped up rice into the cooker ?
Please help. Thank you :)

Unknown said...

angie

this rice needs steam, so you will need to put water - about 1 inch and then a rack so that the rice parcel can sit on top. Pressurized according to the manufacturer's instruction.

Anonymous said...

May I know how long will it take if I used the conventional method?

Love your blogs so much!

Unknown said...

anonymous

conventional steaming will not take 1/2 - 1 hr depending on the size of the package and also the steam factor. Just opening the pack of rice to check for doneness in 1/2 hr and if the rice is not totally cooked. Steam it further.

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