I’m happy to announce that my cake phase is over…for now. I'm taking a break from baking cakes at least until I start my cake decorating classes in a few weeks. I've move on to the food in parcels phase. To start off this phase, I made Lo Mai Gai or Nuo Mi Ji. I think food wrapped in leaves deserve their own little category.
I don’t usually get to eat Lo Mai Gai except for when we go out for dim sum. If I had to choose only one item to eat at dim sum, this is it. I can sit there and eat an entire parcel all by myself. I usually do not because I always feel bad about eating the entire thing. That's why we always order two or three.
A few years ago, I went to dim sum with a bunch of girls. We then went to the Asian grocery store near the dim sum restaurant. My friend asked me if I could help her find all of the ingredients to make Lo Mai Gai at home. Asian food is complicated in the sense that most Westerners do not possess the necessary equipment or ingredients at home. This dish requires at least one if not two different types of steamers. I’ve been able to get away with just one steamer but it took some experimenting to successfully cook sticky rice without a sticky rice steamer.
I prefer a higher proportion of rice to meat so if you like more meat than rice, decrease the amount of rice to two cups and the broth to one cup. I prefer my rice to not be mushy so I use less broth than other recipes I've seen. You can also change the proportion of types of protein. I like using boneless chicken thighs without any char sui because I never really have Chinese barbecued pork around the house. I think the best part of the filling is the Chinese sausage so I use a little more than what is usually found inside your typical dim sum parcel. You can also add diced shrimp if you’re feeling it. I don’t like the smell of shiitake mushrooms so I rinse them really well and use a measly four mushrooms for the 8 packets. Use more if shitakes are your thing. Asian food is very forgiving. Adjust the proportions to your tastes.
