Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No6 Mai5 Faan6)

 

This recipe was updated on 02 Jan 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Happy New Year’s to everyone. For the first recipe of the year, here’s a simplified version of Chinese sticky rice. While there’s still a lot of preparation to make this dish, the recipe is much easier to make due to the use of a rice cooker than the classic version my Mom would make. All Chinese Mom’s have a similar recipe for this dish, the primary ingredients being sweet (glutinous) rice, Cantonese pork sausage, dried shrimp, and Shiitake mushrooms. The variation in recipes come from the way the ingredients are prepared, any additional goodies that get added, and the way everything gets cooked together to make the final dish.

This is one of the dishes my Mom would always make for holidays and for her (favorite) Chicken Stuffed with Sticky Rice (糯米鷄, No⁶ Mai⁵ Gai¹). She would carefully chop and brown all the savory ingredients, prepare the sticky rice, combine the ingredients, and then cook the whole thing in the largest pot she had. Needless to say, the preparation time and work for this dish was large, but the results were always worth it. The best part being that after cooking the rice, there would be a crust of sticky rice on the bottom of the pot, which was another tasty treat after being boiled with more water.

 

So being the curious cook that I am, I asked my Mom for the recipe many years ago, and tried to emulate her recipe with varying degrees of success for the past number of holidays when I was doing the cooking (mainly the dish turned out just OK). The main change to her recipe was that I used a rice cooker instead of a pot to make the sticky rice – which means no rice crust. So over the years, I varied the ingredients (adding dried scallops, dried oysters, and other ingredients), soaked (like she did) or didn’t soak the rice in the mushroom hydration liquid before cooking (the rice turned out too soft if soaked beforehand or didn’t have the right taste if not soaked), varied the ratio of glutinous to non-glutinous rice (using both white and brown rice), and the amount and type of liquid (stock, water, rehydration liquid) to cook the sticky rice.

 

The change I made to make this version of the recipe for my family’s Christmas 2012 dinner was soaking the rice for one hour before cooking in the rice cooker. I found the method in Carolyn Jung’s recipe for sticky rice at FoodGal.com. While there still is a considerable amount of preparation time required to make this dish, this version is far simpler and uses fewer ingredients than my previous attempts. My Mom gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to this version and couldn’t wait to take leftovers home with her! So below is the recipe for my rice cooker version of my Mom’s sticky rice.

Enjoy!

Beef Curry Hong Kong Noodles (咖哩牛肉炒雲吞麵, Gaa3 Lei1 Ngau4 Juk6 Caau2 Wan4 Tan1 Min6)

 

This recipe was updated on 19 Oct 2014. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This dish uses Hong Kong style noodles together with Madras curry powder in a stir fry. Hong Kong noodles are thin egg noodles and the literal translation in Cantonese is wonton noodles. While there aren’t any wontons in this dish, these noodles are typically used together with wonton in a soup broth, hence their name, and that leads to no end of confusion if you use the literal translation. So you’ll find dishes named in English referring to thin egg noodles, Hong Kong style noodles, and even vermicelli (whose use isn’t quite correct). Needless to say, the noodles are just really thin and are really good in a stir fry.

Enjoy!

Roast Pork and Oyster Stir Fry (燒肉炒蠔, Sui1 Juk6 Caau2 Hou4)

This recipe was updated on 05 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This dish is usually prepared in a clay pot, but since I don’t have one, I adapted this dish to use stir frying. The clay pot version is one of my favorites to order at a restaurant, so I was looking forward to making a stir fried version at home. The dish contains some of my favorite ingredients – roast pork (especially the crispy skin) and oysters.

Unless you’re a master at roasting whole pigs, you’ll probably (like me) go to your local Asian delicatessen where you can buy just 1-2 pounds of roast pork. Have the butcher cut the roast pork into pieces and you’ll also get one small container of a soy based dipping sauce with your order. The dipping sauce is slightly sweet, so it goes well with the roast pork. Any leftover roast pork not used in the dish can be used for other dishes (assuming you don’t eat the rest of the roast pork all by itself). I was lucky enough to get the roast pork while it was still hot, right after roasting, at the delicatessen. It was still so hot, that the butcher burned his fingers when he cut the first roast pork piece from the pig for me!

Enjoy!

Grilled Chili Sauce Chicken Noodles (燒烤鮮辣椒鷄麵, Siu1 Haau1 Sin1 Laat6 Ziu1 Gai1 Min6)

 

This recipe was updated on 28 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

When you have leftover chicken from the Grilled Chili Sauce Chicken (燒烤鮮辣椒鷄, Siu¹ Haau¹ Sin¹ Laat⁶ Ziu¹ Gai¹) recipe, you can add it to noodles and green onions to make a quick stir fry with oyster sauce. This is a great dish for lunch. If you’re feeling really lazy, you can buy pre-packaged ready-made (fresh) noodles at your local Asian market and then you won’t even have to boil water to make this dish!

Enjoy!

Grilled Chili Sauce Chicken (燒烤鮮辣椒鷄, Siu1 Haau1 Sin1 Laat6 Ziu1 Gai1)

 

This recipe was updated on 28 Aug 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

This grilled chicken dish is marinated in a chili sauce made by Sichuan Gau Fu Ji Food Company. The chili sauce consists of fresh chopped chilies in oil and spices, and has a fresh chili taste together with a potent kick of heat. This brand is available at your local Asian market, but you can use another prepared chili sauce if you can’t find this brand. Surprisingly much (but certainly not all) of the heat from the chilies are gone after grilling the chicken, but the fresh chili taste remains.

A note on the Cantonese translation for this ingredient, you’ll notice that the translation for the chili sauce is: fresh hot peppers. The first two words are correct, but I wasn’t able to find the translation for the last character, so I substituted the character for peppers. I hope someone can tell me what the last character translates to.

Enjoy!

Lamb Shanks with Spiced Lentils

I had some already browned on the grill, but uncooked, lamb shanks in my freezer (newly rediscovered!) and decided it was time to cook them. This dish was adapted from Braised Lamb Shank with Coriander, Fennel, and Star Anise recipe at the epicurious.com website. I used a slow cooker instead of the oven to cook the dish and made some additions to the ingredients; the most significant being lentils. This makes a nice meal for a cool Fall or Winter evening.

Enjoy!

Chicken and Shiitake Mushrooms with Tomatoes (番茄冬菇鷄, Faan1 Ke4 Dung1 Gu1 Gai1)

 

This recipe was updated on 10 Sep 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

The last of my home grown tomatoes went into making this dish. It’s really just a recipe of chicken, mushrooms, and tomatoes with a mild sweet and sour sauce, and the dish, of course, goes well with steamed rice. The tomato wedges are added at the last minute with the sauce to keep their shape intact.

Enjoy!