Savory steamed Chinese sticky rice with ribs (Rib Lo Mai Fun), yielding well flavored sticky rice with juicy and tender ribs.
The weather drops a lot recently in my city. So we use our steamers more frequently. I have found an extremely easy way to prepare a warm sticky rice with ribs. After absorbing the rib sauces, the rices have a perfect softness and well balanced flavor while ribs, in addition to the original marinating taste, obtain a small touch of rice aroma.
Chinese sticky rice with ribs
Ingredients
1 cup sticky rice (糯米), around 200g
200g ribs, 4cm sections
5 dried shiitake mushrooms, hydrated and cut into small strips
Seasonings
a small pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1/8 teaspoon sugar
1 thumb ginger
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
Sauce and Garnishing
1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 /2 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Chopped scallion
Instructions
Rinse the sticky rice and then soak with enough cold water at the previous night. Room temperature in winter and fridge in summer.
Soak the ribs with cold water for around 30 minutes. Change clean water once and then drain with kitchen paper. Add all the seasonings sauces and ginger except sesame oil. Mix well. Cover with plastic wrapper and marinate overnight. Fridge in hot days.
Line the steamer with a clean gauze (I use dried lotus leaf). Drain the sticky rices completely and spread them on the lined steamer. Mix sesame oil with the ribs and then place on the sticky rice one by one. Then sprinkle the hydrated shiitake mushroom strips.
Set up the steamer and steam for around 1 hour over slow to medium fire after boils. I usually make a broth or stock along with the steamed rice. Note: if you do not want to steam them, you can place all the ingredients in a rice cooker and cook as normal rice. The sticky rice will be softer and much watery.
In a small bowl, mix light soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil well. Drizzle the sauce over the rice. Serve with scallions as garnishing.
Although this is quite yummy, do not eat too much once. Usually I serve each person in my family one small bowl of this and match with other greens and soups. Sticky rice needs longer time to digest.
- 1 cup sticky rice, around 200g
- 200g ribs, 4cm sections
- 5 dried shiitake mushrooms, hydrated
- a small pinch of salt
- ½ tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- ⅛ teaspoon sugar
- 1 thumb ginger
- ½ tablespoon sesame oil
- ½ tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
- ½ tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 /2 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- Chopped scallion
- Rinse the sticky rice and then soak with enough cold water at the previous night. Room temperature in winter and fridge in summer.
- Soak the ribs with cold water for around 30 minutes. Change clean water once and then drain with kitchen paper. Add all the seasonings sauces and ginger expect sesame oil. Mix well. Cover with plastic wrapper and marinate overnight. Fridge in hot days.
- Line the steamer with a clean gauze (I use dried lotus leaf). Drain the sticky rices completely and spread them on the lined steamer. Mix sesame oil with the ribs and then place on the sticky rice one by one. Then sprinkle the hydrated shiitake mushroom strips.
- Set up the steamer and steam for around 1 hour over slow to medium fire after boils. I usually make a broth or stock along with the steamed rice. Note: if you do not want to steam them, you can place all the ingredients in a rice cooker and cook as normal rice. The sticky rice will be softer and much watery.
- In a small bowl, mix light soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil well. Drizzle the sauce over the rice. Serve with scallions as garnishing.
Enjoy! If you make one of my recipes, you can use hot tag @chinasichuanfood on instagram and let me know. Thanks for visiting. If you are a sticky rice lover as me, check the following recipes too.
Hi Elaine,
is that the same “sticky rice” you use in the “Thai Sticky Rice Recipe with Mango”?
Or maybe you could do an extra article on rice perhaps? See the standard rice I get here in the supermarket is parboiled long grain rice.
In the Asian grocery stores I get mainly rice of Thai origin, ie long grain fragrant rice, short grain glutinous / sticky rice and some mid/short grain variant labeled “Sushi Rice” (even though it’s from Thailand, too and not from Japan). I have seen packages labeled “broken rice” but I don’t know what that means or what I should use it for.
Then there is Basmati Rice, Italian or Spanish short grain (which is somewhere in between the glutinous and the “Sushi rice”) and some other French long grain variants. But I don’t think that is what you use.
So even though this might seem obvious to you, I’m sometimes a little bit lost on which rice to use…
Hi Andreas,
It is a great suggestion to introduce rices used in Chinese cuisine. I will draft it in following days.
It is ok to use Thai style sticky rice in almost every sticky rice recipe on my blog. I use lots of Thai sticky rice too.
Pre-boiled rice and broken sticky rice is known as 阴米 in Chinese. It is mainly used for congee or porridge. So they are not the ones.
Both short and long grain rice can be used for this recipe. I use long sticky rice from Thailand.
Sushi rice is a kind somewhere between normal rice and sticky rice. It is less glutinous than sticky rice.
OMG your blog is amazing!! Thanks for the work and effort put into this. I will be your loyal supporter from today lol!
Thanks, Ngan Nguyen. I’m very happy that you love those recipes!
Did the prep yesterday and made it for brunch this morning. So easy and so good. Much, much better than another very popular sticky rice recipe on the Internet. My kids loved it and I’m definitely making this again. Only alteration I made was to add some sugar to the finishing sauce and to steam it on a splatter screen since I couldn’t find my cheesecloth and I don’t have any lotus leaves.
Thank you for another great recipe!
Morning Elaine, I am going to cook this meal today. Without any meats, just vegetables, any suggestion for the vegan Elaine? thanks
Best Regards.
Hi Heng,
If you plan to make use only vegetables, I highly recommended using sweet potatoes or pumpkin.
Hi Elaine,
I’ve just came across this recipe of yours. May I know need to give a quick drench of hot water on the lotus leaf?
No. Just wash them before using, lotus leaf is quite clean.