Sticky Rice with Sausage (Lo Mai Gai)

This is a one pot dish that is often served at Chinese restaurants. This recipe is so simple you can make it at home!

Sticky Rice or Lo Mai Gai, is a popular dim sum dish. It is steamed or stir-fried glutinous rice with cured Chinese sausage, soy sauce, scallions, and sometimes chicken and dried shrimp. Dim sum is a style of Chinese cuisine, specifically Cantonese, where small portions of food are served on small plates or in steamer baskets. The term dim sum means “touch the heart”. It is typically served with tea. There is a Cantonese tradition of serving tea with this style of cuisine known as yum cha meaning “to drink tea”.

Dim sum was the Sunday brunch tradition in my family instead of eggs and pancakes. We would go to a local Chinese restaurant, wait with other hungry patrons, be seated at a table, and intermittently carts would arrive. The metal carts would be filled with baskets of dumplings, steamed vegetables, rice or egg noodles, pork buns, turnip cakes, spare ribs, congee, sticky rice, and so much more.

The sticky rice was the dish I coveted as a child, and still favor as an adult. I invented this recipe when I was a recent college graduate, living in an apartment with three roommates, paying off student loans, and working two jobs at odd hours. I did not have a lot of money for fresh ingredients, but I still craved dim sum. I needed a way to create my favorite dish using dried, canned, or preserved foods a recent graduate could afford.

Sticky Rice with Sausage (Lo Mai Gai)

Serves 8 as a starter/side

Serves 4 as a main dish

Inactive Time 2 hours

Prep Time 5 min

Cook Time 25 min

Rest Time 10 min

Tea Pairing Suggestion: Jasmine or Chrysanthemum Tea

Directions

Put rice in a bowl and cover with 1 inch of water. Soak rice for two hours. Drain before using.

Thinly slice the sausage. Put oil in medium size pot and heat on medium heat.

Add sausages, ginger, and scallion to pot. Then stir fry ingredients for 1 min.

Stir in soy sauce, oyster sauce, and white pepper. Add rice and coat in sauces.

Pour chicken broth over the rice. Bring to a simmer and reduce heat to low. Cover pot with a lid and cook for 25 minutes.

Turn off the heat and let the pot stand, covered, for 10 minutes.

Serve hot. Garnish with thinly sliced scallions if desired.

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