Lo mai gai
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| Lo mai gai | |||||||||||||
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| Lotus leaf wrap | |||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese: | 糯米雞 | ||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese: | 糯米鸡 | ||||||||||||
| Literal meaning: | glutinous rice chicken | ||||||||||||
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Lo mai gai (Cantonese) Nuo mi ji (Mandarin), also called steamed chicken in lotus leaf wrap, or glutinous rice in lotus leaf wrap, is a kind of southern Chinese food. It contains glutinous rice filled with chicken, Chinese mushrooms, Chinese sausage and sometimes dried shrimp. The ball of rice is then wrapped in a dried lotus leaf and steamed. In North America, banana, lily, or grape leaves may be used instead. It is often served as a dim sum at tea houses.
In Malaysia and Singapore, there are two variants of lo mai gai. The first which is the original Cantonese version and the other a takeaway style served at coffee shops and speciality local dim sum shops. The takeaway style has glutinous rice served with chicken and are usually factory made by companies such as Kong Guan.
[edit] Variant
Sometimes lo mai gai is divided into smaller wraps, which are known as chun chu gai (literally pearly chicken; in Chinese, "pearly" means "tiny" or "mini").
Some restaurants use ground pork instead of chicken.
Due to the soft lotus leaf Lo mai gai is typically wrapped into square. Zongzi is wrapped using much stiffer leaves into a triangular shape.
