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Remember good ol' sticky rice dumplings? The Tuen Ng festival is over...but we still have some of this from SC's mama. We could have sticky rice dumplings for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a few days straight ^_^
For breakfast...or lunch...or snack...I like to have my sticky rice dumplings with...
a bit of soy sauce and Indonesian ABC chilli sauce.
If you noticed, SC's mama loves her sticky rice dumplings with lots of beans and not much meat filling.
Thus, for dinner, I can't just have sticky rice dumplings this way...I need something more substantial.
So I decided to have them with Teriyaki Braised Pork Ribs and Vegetable & Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce.
My best attempt of trying to have a "balanced meal" ^_^
Teriyaki Braised Pork Ribs
Recipe
- 1 lb pork ribs
- 1 clove shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 small clove garlic, crushed
- 2 cm ginger, crushed
- Teriyaki Sauce (I used Kikkoman), rice wine, hot water, olive oil, sugar
Saute ginger, garlic and shallot in a bit of olive oil, add ribs, add teriyaki sauce, rice wine, a bit of sugar and hot water (just until it barely covers the meat), and pressure cook for 25 minutes. If you don't use a pressure cooker, bring to boil and simmer until the meat is falling-off-the-bone tender.
The Teriyaki Glaze
- Teriyaki sauce
- Rice wine
- Sugar
- braising liquid
- corn starch dissolved in water
Mix everything, bring to boil and keep tasting it until you achieve your preferred balance of sweet and savoury, thicken with corn starch mixture. It should be more on the sweet side. Drizzle over the ribs.
Yum! Sticky sticky!
Vegetables and mushrooms in oyster sauce
You don't need a recipe for this :)
It's basically shredded Chinese lettuce and sliced shiitake mushrooms stir fried with a bit of ginger and oyster sauce.
This weekend's breakfast and lunch menu = you know it! Sticky rice dumplings! Hmm, maybe with bacon and scrambled eggs ^_^
This is a homey dish that would impress the heck outta your spouse/bf/gf/in laws/colleagues/spouse's colleagues/frenemies/enemies...well, just about everyone, and it's completely doable!
Thanks to Noobcook for posting the easy-to-follow recipe.
I had been dreaming chicken & sticky rice days and nights after I saw her beautiful bird, and finally, I did it, with a little tweaks here and there.
Do some stretching exercises, take a deep breath...
Ready?
The bird
You'll need:
- 1 small sized chicken (you can go bigger, but my oven can only fit smaller birds, around HK$30 ones)
Remove head, neck, feet, trim excess fat, clean thoroughly and pat dry.
Marinate
- Hoisin sauce, dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, white pepper, five spice powder
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 shallots, thinly sliced
- a few sprigs of spring onion, cut into 5 cm long pieces
- 5 cm ginger, sliced thinly
Rub marinate mix all over the bird, place garlic, shallot, spring onion and ginger including in the cavity and in between the meat and skin, refrigerate overnight.
Sing the bird a lullaby if you wish :)
Sticky Rice Stuffing
I soaked 2 cups of sticky rice, 1 cup of dried shiitake mushrooms overnight. Before cooking, drain rice and set aside. Drain and slice mushrooms, reserve the water.
For a little citrus touch, instead of lemon/lime (which I didn't have), I used 9 years old dried orange peel from sc's mom. Soak them in water while preparing other ingredients.
My stuffing also included chestnuts, chopped dried shiitake mushrooms, and the best bit? Chinese sausages (lap cheong), sliced thinly. I like to think that lap cheong is the sweeter, Chinese cousin of bacon.
Heat up a pan, throw lap cheong pieces to release its oil, add mushrooms and chestnuts. Add light soy sauce and dark soy sauce, toss everything around a little...then add sticky rice.
...and add a cup of chicken stock, and 1/3 cup of mushroom water (the one from soaking the mushroom)
Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes....
...and it would be really hard to say goodbye to this sticky deliciousness...really really hard, but try.
Stop eating the stuffing!
It has to go into the bird's ass.
Preheat oven to 200C/400F.
Stuff sticky rice into the bird's cavity (I wanted to say ass), and add a bit of thinly sliced rehydrated dried orange peel in the cavity and in between the chicken's meat and skin too.
I gave my bird too much liposuction, I couldn't close it's ass! Arrgghhh! Please remember to leave some skin to allow your bird to seal the rice properly. Place chicken on a roasting pan, covered with foil, let it roast for 1 hour.
After an hour, uncover the bird, oh my!
But I want my bird's skin to be crispier, darker, tastier.
So I basted the skin with a mix of olive oil, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, dark soy sauce and some sugar.
Baste it good!
Roast it again uncovered until the skin turns deep-brown-beautiful.
You likey? You wanna go deeper?
If you really want it, and because it's the holidays, when I can be guilty and forget the health factor just a little bit...
Baste the bird again and roast it again until you get this...
A little burnt bits here and there...that's all I wanted.
Now my bird is all kinds of beautiful!
Sweet, sticky, savoury tasty skin.
Tender, moist, juicy meat.
Delicious stuffing bursting with flavors.
There was no way I could stop at one bowl. No-bloody-way!
But it's totally worth the leg numbing dance class I had to do after :p
Happy winter solstice festival everyone~
Get cooking.
I love Chinese sticky rice dumplings. Nono. I freaking ADORE Chinese Sticky Rice Dumplings, I could've ask them to marry me. However, sometimes they remind me of my big fat calves in gladiator sandals, and I'd love my calves even less, but my love for the dumplings remains strong.
I've always wanted to learn how to wrap these little babies, and finally, I had a chance to try when sous chef's mom was preparing a huge batch of this deliciousness. The above savoury dumpling was done by me, marked with a red raffia, so that they could identify which ones I've done, which was absolutely unnecessary. The ugly ones were mine, whereas these cute and perfect little pyramids below were done by the master.
The difference? Like heaven and hell, eh?
Below, I'm gonna illustrate the basic wrapping technique which I've learnt. Why do I always have to illustrate instead of taking photographs?
You've guessed it right.
I. the dumbass. forgot. my camera.
How to Make Chinese Sticky Rice Dumplings
(Ugly Rectangular Wrapping)
The Ingredients
- Sticky rice (soaked overnight)
- Salted egg yolks
- Dry green beans (with no skin, soaked overnight)
- Dried scallops (soaked until softened)
- Pork meat, use cuts which contain some fat, marinate in five spice powder, soy sauce, sugar (alternatively, you can use chicken, sausages, or beef, just choose the ones with some fatty bits, we need the fat to moisturize the dumplings, otherwise we'd end up with dry and dense dumplings)
- Bamboo leafs for wrapping (available in Chinese grocers) and the strings
Feel free to improvise and add other ingredients too! Sous chef suggested adding ribena, the idea was immediately shot down by...everyone (thank God).
The Soaking
I don't think I needed to illustrate the soaking, but while I was at it, I got carried away and it would be such as waste not to post this illustration, so there you go!
The Wrapping
1. Lay two leafs, partially overlapping
2. The stacking, layer the ingredients this way:
- 1 heaping tbsp of sticky rice
- 1 heaping tbsp of green beans
- lay the meat in the middle, eggyolk and dried scallop on each side
- add 1 heaping tbsp of green beans on top
- top everything off with 1 heaping tbsp of sticky rice
Remember to allow some space on either side of the leafs
3. Cover the little mountain of ingredients with another piece of leaf
4. Fold both sides of the leafs in to securely cover the ingredients, gather the edges similar to the way you gift wrap...
5. Fold both ends in
6. Tie with a string, it doesn't have to be too tight as the ingredients will swell after cooking, just make sure it is secure and it doesn't leak
I wish mine were as pretty as the illustrations.
After wrapping a batch, boil the batch in a big pot for about 3 hrs, drain and let cool for later consumption. I reheated mine in microwave. Place a dumpling in a bowl, add a bit of water, microwave on high for a couple of minutes, unwrap and enjoy.
Some people eat their sticky rice dumplings with soy sauce, some sprinkle some sugar (which I found weird, but many people love it), some pour both sugar and soy sauce. I devoured mine with soy sauce and chilli sauce.
They may look imperfect, but they are moist, rich, fragrant, flavorful, scrumptuous, succulent, delicious...Help! I am out of yummy adjectives!
What comes to your mind when you see something challenging?
A. Yes! I should try! I can do this!
B. .........Oh shit!
Not proud of it, but I am leaning more towards B. Oppps. Rarely From time to time, I welcome challenges and feel excited...but most of the time, including the time I heard that the cooking together (Masak Bareng Yuuk) event 's theme is Indonesian street snack, and not only that...the snack has to be made of rice...."oh shit" was really the first thing that came to my mind. I've never attempted any Indonesian snacks at home. Whenever I miss them, I'd dig deep into my pocket and just buy some. So, I initially planned to "miss" this event, but after some intense discussions with my blogging pal, Deetha, I gave it a go.
I started making this snack without any expectation of success, not aiming to create any specific classic snack. I was thoroughly submissive of what the result was gonna be, it was a desperate experiment.
My plan was to throw the following:
- Sticky rice
- Palm sugar
- Coconut milk
- a pinch of salt
into a pot, cook them for a while and see how it goes....
Sticky Rice Cake with Palm Sugar and Coconut Milk
I realised that I haven't even tried cooking sticky rice before. I imagine it should be the same as cooking regular rice, which is..dump them into the rice cooker and press cook. I assumed I could do the same with this thing, and when I heard the beep, I would have some sweet and fragrant sticky rice thingy, ready to be consumed.
Clearly, I was delusional. Cooking sticky rice is a gadzillion miles away from cooking regular rice. It has to be soaked, it has to be steamed, and then cooked again, and possible steamed again. Whoa! Was I ready for that? Not really. But with a pack of sticky rice on my hand...and the fear of that pack of rice being thrown onto my face by Deetha (albeit virtually - hehe no, Deetha is sweet and not at all violent), I got onto it and did this very dubious snack, which despite of it looking miles away from any classic Indonesian snack, tasted bloody fantastic. Sticky, sweet and fragrant.
Recipe
- 1 cup of white sticky rice, soaked overnight
- blocks of palm sugar (add bit by bit until you reach the desired sweetness)
- a pinch of salt
- coconut milk (I use 200 ml)
- water (add when necessary)
Cook soaked sticky rice in a bit of water, add coconut milk, add palm sugar and pinch of salt, adjust taste until it is perfect for you and all the coconut milk are absorbed. Set aside, let cool. When you want to consume it, steam until the cake is done thoroughly. You can create a sticky rice cake "sandwich" by adding mashed bananas or durian in between, or serve it with creamy coconut milk, or consume as is.
Hope I won't say "oh shit" again next month and take whatever challenge with courage and optimism (nah, that doesn't sound like me, does it?)