Traditional Chinese Rice Dish - Loh Mai Fan (Sticky Rice)
Loh Mai Fan (Glutinous rice) is a rice dish I grew up eating. It’s possible that I am not looking hard enough, but I can’t find this dish in any Chinese restaurant’s menu. I’m so glad I came across this recipe and can make it myself!
To make this, you’ll need:
Equipment
Instant pot
Dry Ingredients
Glutinous rice (1 cup unsoaked)
Dehydrated shiitake mushrooms (5 pieces)
Dehydrated/dried shrimp (¼ cup)
Chinese sausage (2 links)
One stalk of scallion
Ingredients for the sauce
Shaoxing wine (2 tbs)
Light soy sauce (2tbs)
Dark soy sauce (1 tbs) - not in the video; after the taste test, my partner and I thought it was not salty enough
Sesame seed oil (1 tsp)
Oyster sauce (½ tbs)
Dash of white pepper
If you are not able to purchase any of the above ingredients at your local grocery store, you can purchase them on Amazon (the links below are not affiliate links, and they are brands I either recognize or usually go for)
Dehydrated shrimp: I haven’t used this brand before. But since it’s seafood, I’d rather recommend a US-based company than the other ones on Amazon
Scallions: If you cannot find scallions in your supermarket, no worries. You can use shallots (still in the same onion family but less pungent than white onion.)
ShaoXing wine: I know it seems strange that there’s only one review. But most of us don’t buy ShaoXing wine on Amazon :D)
Oyster sauce (traditional bottle)
Instructions:
Rehydrate the mushrooms with 2 cups of hot water. Be sure to keep the liquid, as you will use the flavorful liquid to cook the rice at the end. You should soak it for a minimum of 30 minutes. I soak mine for 2 hours only because I was running errands. One of the benefits of soaking it longer is - the mushroom will be super tender, and it will be cool enough to handle.
Soak the glutinous rice (FYI, you won’t be using the water at the end) for about an hour
Chop up the dehydrated shrimp, set aside
Julienne the Chinese sausage
Cut up the scallions into two parts, white and green. Dice the white part, set aside; then dice the green part, set aside
Finely chop the garlic
Once the mushroom is completely hydrated, cut off the stems and thinly slice them. For the stems, you can either save them for stock or discard them.
To prepare for the sauce, simply mix all the sauce ingredients. I would recommend adding 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, as the amount of sodium in the video isn’t enough to flavor my dish. We ended up adding few more splashes of soy sauce
Now, you are ready to assemble everything!
Use the “Sauté” mode on your Instant Pot. Heat up the pot for about 1-2 minutes.
Once the pot is hot enough (you can hover your hand over the pot to see if it’s hot enough). If it is, add about 2 tablespoons of oil (you can use olive oil or canola oil)
Once the oil is hot enough, add in the white part of the scallion and the dry shrimp to fry it. Let the flavor of the shrimp go into the oil. Let it cook for about a minute.
Add in Chinese sausage and cook it for about 1 minute
Add in garlic. Let it cook for about 30 seconds.
Add in the mushroom. Cook off some of the moisture before adding the drained rice (it should take just about 1 minute).
Add drained rice. Again, let the water cook off a bit. We don’t want to burn the rice, so only cook it for 30-60 seconds.
Add the sauce and let the sauce coat the rice
Once that’s done, add the mushroom liquid. Make sure the rice is completely submerged in the liquid before putting the lid back on
Put the lid back on. Press “Off.” Then select the “Rice” function. It should be preset to 12 minutes. Be sure to seal the vent.
Once the timer goes off, let it slow release for about 4-5 minutes.
WAH LAH
