A round white porcelain plate holds jasmine rice coated with brown sauce, accompanied by pink shrimp, shiitake mushrooms, Chinese sausage, shallot, ginger, garlic and scallion, with wooden chopsticks resting beside the plate.
Rice as a grain, its main kinds, and the plain rice and congee cooked from it.
Lotus leaf rice is a Cantonese dim sum of rice mixed with fillings, wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed. It uses non-glutinous rice, unlike glutinous rice chicken, and its fillings include fish, chicken and mushroom. The 2 recipes are both Hong Kong style, use jasmine rice with shrimp, and steam for about 10 minutes. No dated original text was found, so its origin date remains unclear.
What
Lotus leaf rice is a Cantonese dim sum of seasoned rice and fillings wrapped in a lotus leaf and steamed. Fillings include fish, chicken and mushroom. It uses non-glutinous rice rather than glutinous rice, which sets it apart from glutinous rice chicken. Of the 2 recipes, the first uses shrimp, mushroom, dried scallop and Chinese sausage, and the second uses shrimp and garlic.1,3,4
When
No dated original text was found, and the available accounts give no year for the emergence of today's lotus leaf rice, so its origin date remains unclear.1,2
Where
Lotus leaf rice is associated with Guangdong as a Cantonese dim sum. Both recipes are Hong Kong style: the first comes from a Hong Kong food text with no named individual author, and the second from a book on Hong Kong local food.1,3,4
How
In the first recipe, sautéed fillings are mixed into cooled rice and wrapped in a scalded lotus leaf. In the second, rice fried with egg white goes into a steamer lined with a blanched leaf. Both steam for about 10 minutes, and the second is finished with a sauce poured over.3,4
Why
The available texts do not explain why the rice is wrapped in a lotus leaf, so no reason is inferred. Both recipes steam the rice together with the leaf.1,2,3,4
Impact and influence
Lotus leaf rice is a Cantonese dim sum also served at yum cha, and Hong Kong restaurants list it as shrimp lotus leaf rice. Contemporary versions described on February 25, 2022 have at least 6 fillings, with egg yolk fried rice seasoned with scallop juice and oyster sauce.1,2,3
No tale about this food has been found.
Grandma Li
This is a simplified home version, not the traditional restaurant method.
This is the simpler way I make it at home, in the Hong Kong dim sum style: the fillings are stir-fried until seasoned, cooled rice is fried with egg white so the grains stay loose, and the rice is wrapped in a scalded lotus leaf and steamed for about 10 minutes. The amounts of rice and mushroom follow a Hong Kong recipe that names no individual author, though I use more shrimp than it does, and frying the rice with egg white follows a signed recipe from a book on Hong Kong food. Both give about 10 minutes of steaming. The other amounts are my own choices for two people, and a dim sum kitchen would use more fillings.
Ingredients
- Cooked jasmine rice, cooled 300 g
- Raw peeled shrimp 100 g, each cut in half
- Dried shiitake mushrooms 3
- Chinese sausage 1, diced small
- Shallots 2, chopped
- Ginger 3 slices, chopped
- Garlic 2 cloves, chopped
- Scallion 1, sliced
- Egg white 1
- Oyster sauce 1 tablespoon
- Light soy sauce 1 tablespoon
- Cooking wine 1 tablespoon
- Sesame oil 1 teaspoon
- Cooking oil 2 tablespoons
- Dried lotus leaf 1 large, cut in half
Steps
- Soak the dried mushrooms in warm water for about 20 minutes until soft, squeeze them dry and dice them.
- Scald the dried lotus leaf in hot water until pliable, rinse it, pat it dry and cut it in half.
- Heat the wok, add 1 tablespoon of oil, and fry the shallots, ginger and garlic over medium heat until fragrant. Add the sausage and fry for about 1 minute, then the mushrooms for another minute.
- Add the shrimp and stir until they just turn pink, then mix in the oyster sauce, soy sauce and wine and take everything out. The shrimp keep cooking in the steamer, so I take them just to the point where they change color.
- Wipe the wok, add 1 tablespoon of oil, and over high heat stir in the egg white until it just sets. Add the cooled rice and fry until the grains are loose, then add the sesame oil and scallion and mix in the cooked fillings.
- Pile half of the rice in the middle of half a leaf, fold in the four sides to make a square parcel, and set it seam side down in the steamer. Do the same with the other half.
- Steam over boiling water on high heat for about 10 minutes. Open one parcel to check: the shrimp must be pink and firm all the way through and the rice hot throughout. If not, steam for 2 more minutes.
Tips
- Cooled, day-old rice fries into separate grains rather than clumps; this is my own habit.
- Always scald the leaf before folding, or it cracks when folded. I open the parcels at the table while they are hot, so the fragrance comes out all at once.
Allergens: shellfish, soy, wheat, egg, sesame