Wrapless Lo Mai Gai

This is by far one of my favourite things to eat at dim sums. The only pitfall is that it's really filling so then you can't have as much of the other yummy stuff at dim sums. That being said, I usually don't order it or I'll order it and then not eat it so I can save it to go. Teehee.

You can wrap it in parchment paper (if you don't have the lotus leaves) and then steam it for 15 minutes in a steam basket to make a more traditional Lo Mai Gai. But I didn't care for any of it so I just topped the sticky rice with the filling in this "wrapless" Lo Mai Gai. ;)

Note: If using a pot to cook the rice, then soak rice in water overnight and add enough water so that it's 1 part rice and 1.5 part liquid. Add seasonings. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes, covered. Turn off heat and let stand for 10-15 minutes before stirring/serving.


Wrapless Lo Mai Gai
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 3 "cups" uncooked sweet/glutinous rice
• 4 chicken skinless boneless chicken thighs, cubed
• 5-7 Shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated & sliced/diced, steeping liquid reserved 
• 2 lap cheong (Chinese sausage), thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp five-spice
• 1 Tbsp ginger, grated
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsps yellow wine/shaoxing wine
• 1/4 cup soy sauce, divided
• 2 tsps cornstarch, divided
• 2 Tbsps sesame oil, divided
• Water

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, mix together five-spice, ginger, garlic, sugar, wine, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of cornstarch and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil with the chicken thighs. Marinate for 30 minutes on the counter.
2. Rinse out the rice and add the reserved mushroom steeping liquid and enough water to meet the 3 cups line. Add in a tablespoon of sesame oil and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Cook sweet rice in the Instant Pot using the rice option. 
3. In a large skillet or wok over medium high heat, toss in the lap cheong slices until they become bright red and the oil comes out. Make a large well in the middle and add the marinated chicken thighs and mushrooms. Cook until chicken is cooked through, stirring frequently.
4. Meanwhile, make a slurry out of the remaining teaspoon of cornstarch and 1/2 cup of water. Add to the wok or skillet, scraping up any brown bits. Cook until the sauce thickens. Turn off heat.
5. Scoop rice into 4 bowls and top with skillet mixture, drizzling extra sauce over the rice.
6. Serve hot with soup and steamed veggies.

Omuraisu (Fried Rice Omelette)

I've always seen this in Japanese and sometimes Korean restaurants, but never thought to try it. Honestly, it doesn't seem that interesting to me. But I do love having ketchup with my fried eggs, so why not? It's also an excellent use of leftover or fresh fried rice. I think having it with Kimchi Fried Rice is the best though. ;)

Rolling the omelette off the pan and onto a plate can be kind of tricky with such a thin omelette. You can always use more oil to help it out. Or, just make a dome out of the rice and then cover the dome with the circular egg and top with the ketchup. The presentation will be different, but it's all the same in the end. :)


Omuraisu (Fried Rice Omelette)
(serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, beaten & divided
• 2-4 Tbsps ketchup
• 2 cups fried rice
• 1 Tbsp canola oil, divided
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Heat up fried rice, if necessary, by adding 1 teaspoon of oil to a small hot skillet over medium heat and stir frying until heated through. Transfer to bowl and wipe down the skillet.
2. Return skillet to the heat and add another 1 teaspoon of oil. Let it warm up a bit over medium low heat before adding 1 of the beaten eggs in. Tilt the skillet to ensure egg is evenly distributed in the pan to make a very thin omelette. Season with salt and pepper. Add 1 cup of rice in the middle of the omelette. Fold one of the sides over to partially cover the rice. Gently roll the omelette over (the half with the rice onto the non-wrapped part) and off the pan and onto the plate to make a rolled omelette. Top with half of the ketchup.
3. Repeat the process with the next omelette.
4. Serve hot with soup or coffee.

Kimchi Fried Rice

One of my favourite foods in the world for sure! I love a runny egg with almost anything. Seriously. And I love fried rice. And have you TRIED kimchi paired with rice and a runny egg? OMG it's to DIE FOR.

You could make this vegetarian or with any kind of protein. I made mine with leftover diced deli ham, but I've tried it with diced spam. HELLO...loving it. But I do love my spam, so meh! :P

This really is an awesome dish to use up leftover kimchi and leftover rice. You can even make it using leftover fried rice, which makes this dish even easier than it already is. :D


Kimchi Fried Rice
(serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup kimchi, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups leftover cooked rice
• 3 Tbsps kimchi juice
• 1 heaping Tbsp gojujang
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 cup mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 lb diced spam/ham/cooked chicken/beef strips/bulgolgi/firm tofu etc.
• 2 green onions, finely diced
• 1 Tbsp canola oil
• 2 tsps sesame oil
• 2 eggs
• Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:

1. In a large pan, heat up 1 teaspoon of canola oil. Add mushrooms and cook until caramelized. Add kimchi and stir fry until heated through.
2. Add in protein and rice. Using a spatula, break up the clumps of rice, while stirring everything so it doesn't stick to the pan too much.
3. Pour in the kimchi juice, gojujang and water. Stir until well combined. 
4. Drizzle in the sesame oil and add in green onion. Stir to loosen up everything. Take off the heat and place into 2 bowls. Set aside.
5. In a small skillet, heat up the remaining canola oil over medium low heat. Gently break the eggs into the pan and cook until almost cooked through. Season with a little bit of salt and continue to cook until all the whites are cooked through. Cover the pan with a lid if you want to cook it faster.
6. Slide one egg each over the bowls of kimchi fried rice. Garnish with sesame seeds, if desired.
7. Serve with a side of seaweed salad, pickled radishes or alone as is.

Brown Rice & Beans

Teeheehee. Hubby will always refuse brown rice. Unless it's my mom mixing it with jasmine rice. Then he can't really complain and he just eats it. Begrudgingly. Regardless, I'm trying to eat healthier. (Trying is the operative word here.) That being said, I wanted to try brown rice without mixing it with white rice. It may not sound like a big deal to most people, but it's so scary for me. I LOVE my sushi and jasmine rice. Sometimes I actually do wonder if I can live longer without rice or without Hubby.

Anywho, I saw a recipe for Jamaican rice and peas, so I thought I'd try it out with brown rice and black beans (rather than kidney, since I didn't have any). It's pretty darn good. Maybe I'll actually try brown rice in place of white rice one day. Maybe.

Oh yeah, before I forget. The whole point of this was that I somehow managed to get Hubby to have brown rice without him knowing that it was brown rice. He just doesn't like beans with his rice, so I'll have to do something about that next time. Progress!


Brown Rice & Beans
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1 400ml (13.5oz) can of coconut milk
• 1 cup brown rice, uncooked
• 1 cup cooked black beans
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• Salt, to taste
• 1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. In a medium pot, heat up the cream part of the coconut milk over medium high heat. Once bubbly, stir in onions. Cook until soften.
2. Stir in allspice, cumin and a pinch of salt. Add in rice and mix until it's all coated with the coconut cream.
3. Pour the remaining can of coconut milk and water. Bring to a boil. Cover, lower the heat to a bare simmer and simmer for 45 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in black beans. Cover and let rest for 5 minutes.
4. Serve as a side with grilled fish/prawns and a side salad, or fish stew.

Bacon Fried "Rice"

Surprisingly quinoa is one of those foods that Hubby doesn't mind eating. K actually likes eating it too. As long as it's mixed with something with lots of flavour. Enter the bacon here. I had been craving fried rice but didn't have any leftover rice. So I just used quinoa as a sub. Turned out really nicely. I'm impressed. So much so that we'll probably be making this more often. :)

I like using truRoots Organic Quinoa. It's already pre-rinsed so I don't have to bother with rinsing the quinoa and then toasting it dry before actually doing any cooking. :D


Bacon Fried "Rice"
(serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups uncooked organic quinoa (rinsed and toasted dry)
• 6 slices bacon, diced
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 4 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 1/4 cups water

Directions:

1. In a small pot, add water and quinoa. Bring to a boil. cover and simmer on the lowest heat for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes, take off the heat and rest for 5 minutes before fluffing with fork.
2. Meanwhile, cook diced bacon pieces in a large skillet until all the fat has rendered and bacon bits are crisp. Transfer the bacon bits to a paper towel lined bowl. Drain off fat, leaving about 1 tablespoon in the skillet.
3. Add beaten eggs and stir with chopsticks or a spatula while the eggs are cooking, breaking the egg into bit size pieces. Once eggs are half way cooked, add bacon back into the skillet, along with the peas. Cook and stir until peas are heated through.
4. Toss in quinoa and stir until combined.
5. Serve with soup.

Ham & Pepper Fried Rice

OMG we always have so much leftovers after a Christmas dinner. Same for Thanksgiving too. Maybe next year I'll just make turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas. I really actually only like the ham. Hubby used to love turkey but he prefers ham now so really it's just the extended family that likes turkey.

I gotta say though, it's pretty amazing when you present a nicely cooked turkey to a big group of people. Makes you feel accomplish. ^^

Anywho, I used deli ham for the picture cuz I forgot to take a picture of the one with real ham and sometimes I need to get rid of deli ham quick. But who cares. It's still the same recipe. Only it tastes way more amazing with real ham that you've cooked using a picnic shoulder. Drool....


Ham & Pepper Fried Rice
(serves 2-3)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cold leftover white rice (1-3 days old)
• 1/2 lb ham (or any cooked meat or medium firm tofu), finely diced or crumbled
• 1 bell pepper, finely diced
• 1 - 2 Tbsps ginger, minced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 green onion stalks, finely diced
• Salt or soy sauce, to taste
• 2 Tbsps canola oil

Directions:

1. Heat a wok on high heat to warm up canola oil. Add in ginger, garlic and ham. Stir fry until ham starts to caramelize/brown. Add in eggs, stirring vigorously so that it doesn't burn and scrambles into tiny pieces.
2. When egg is still a little runny, add in bell peppers and rice. Stir to break up all the rice. Season with salt or soy sauce. 
3. Once the rice softens and is no longer in clumps, turn off the heat. Stir in green onions.
4. Serve with soup.

Baked Pork & Rice

OMGOMGOMG. You know the baked pork chop rice you can get at Hong Kong style cafes? I LOVE that dish! I've always gotten it whenever I go to these little cafes and I love it. Absolutely love it. It can be a little annoying because the pork chop is cut into strips so you still have to cut them smaller or use your teeth to tear them apart. Kinda neanderthal-ish. But I'm used to it so it doesn't really bother me that much. Just a little inconvenient but easily solved by slicing everything up on a side plate. :)

So my sis and I were talking about our love of HK style cafes and how our spouses don't care for them at all (the horror), and she suggested that I just try making this dish on my own. So I did.

I wouldn't call this a fail, since it's so yummy. But it's definitely not as sweet and tangy as the dish we'd get at the restaurants. This sauce is much more meaty. And I cut the pork chop up into bite sized pieces before baking. Then I don't need to do any extra cutting. Just shovel the food into my mouth. My favourite way to eat things. LOL.


Baked Pork & Rice
(serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups day old cooked white rice
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3 boneless thin pork cutlets
• 2 medium tomatoes, cut into wedges
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 2/3 cup ketchup
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 Tbsps sugar, divided
• 2 Tbsps soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 4 Tbsps canola oil, divided
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a Ziploc bag or shallow dish, mix together 1 tablespoon of sugar, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Add in pork cutlets and marinade for 15-30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 375F.
3. In a wok or frying pan, heat up 2 tablespoons of canola oil on medium high heat. Stir in eggs and mix around, breaking it up into small pieces of scrambled egg. When egg is half cooked, add rice and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Stir fried rice until rice is heated through and eggs are cooked. Transfer to a 1 1/2 quart oven safe dish. Set aside.
4. In a frying pan, heat up remaining canola oil on medium high heat. Place pork cutlets in hot pan, reserving marinade. Cook 2 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Transfer to a plate.
5. Add onions and tomatoes to the pan and cook until tomatoes and onions have soften. Add in garlic, ketchup, water, remaining sugar and reserved marinade. Scrape up any brown bits on the bottom and lower heat to medium low. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes.
6. While sauce is simmering, cut up pork cutlets into bite sized pieces. Transfer the pork cutlet pieces, along with any juices that have leaked out onto the plate into the sauce mixture. Stir to combine. Season with salt, pepper and sugar (if too tangy) to taste.
7. Turn off heat and pour pork and sauce mixture over the fried rice. Sprinkle on the mozzarella cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cheese is nice and bubbly.
8. Serve with a side salad and/or soup.

Update: Corrected a typo. Sugar should've been divided otherwise it'll burn the wok or pan when cooking the pork chops. I made this again and just cubed the pork chop first to make it cook a little faster and have more seared surface area. Easier and just as yummy. :)

Veggie Sticky Rice

Okay, so I made this a while ago. As in a month ago. I didn't get around to putting it up though since I had other stuff I wanted to put up first. HEEHEE.

That and because I like the non-vegetarian version way more. I'm a meatatarian! I try to blame it all on Hubby but it's true. I love my meats.....for some dishes anyway and this is definitely one of those dishes. But anyway, I decided to make this vegetarian cuz I had some leftover char siu and didn't want to dice it up into this dish. I rather eat the char siu whole as a side for this rice. It worked out pretty well. I think I might be able to use this as a side dish for other meat dishes in place of plain white rice. HMMM...

Note: I did use my Instant Pot to make the sticky rice, so the 1 "cup" is really 160ml, not the traditional 240ml cups. :)


Veggie Sticky Rice
(serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 1 "cup" sweet rice
• 2 green onions, finely diced
• 6 Shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated & finely diced
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 3 Tbsps soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp canola oil

Directions:

1. Cook sweet rice in the Instant Pot using the rice option. Move onto the next step once rice is cooked.
2. In a wok, heat up oil on high heat. Add onion and mushrooms. Cook until onions are soft. 
3. Stir in rice. Season with soy sauce. Break up rice using a spatula and mix until everything is well incorporated. Turn off heat and mix in green onion.
4. Serve as a side with a protein or by itself.

Pork Belly Claypot Rice

It's kind of deceiving since you're supposed to (I think) cook everything in the Claypot but I made the pork belly first and THEN cooked rice in the Claypot with the cooked pork belly, some of the sauce and veggies. Doesn't the pic just look AWESOME? Lol


Pork Belly Claypot Rice
(Serves 2-3)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups ready made braised pork belly
• 1/2 cup reserved braised pork belly sauce
• 1 cup uncooked Jasmine rice
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 4 stalks Shanghai Bok Choy, quartered
• 1 green onion, finely diced (optional)

Directions:

1. Wash rice a couple of times in cold water until the water runs clear(ish).
2. Put rice and water into a large Claypot. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Uncover and quickly put in the Bok Choy on top of the rice and top with pork belly and the sauce. Cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.
4. Turn off heat and let stand COVERED for another 15 minutes before serving.
5. Mix everything together and then serve in bowls. Garnish with green onion (optional) and enjoy!

You can always drizzle more sauce over the rice before eating. It's so good!!!!! So very decadent. You might need a little more pork belly though with all that rice. Or you can just lessen the rice. I love rice, so it was good for me. But normally people like to eat more of the pork belly like my Hubby so then more pork belly or less rice would be a good idea.