Lotus leaf fried rice

Long, long ago, back when I first became entranced with the magic of China’s cuisines, this is a dish that really stood out. It is simply visually exciting. And for some strange reason it's something you rarely see.

But the thing is, lotus leaf fried rice has to be one of the most spectacular things you can spring on your dinner guests.

It is insanely easy and open to all sorts of variations, depending upon what you like and what is hiding in the fridge or freezer. I have a couple of recipes for fried rice in All Under Heaven that could easily slide in here. Lots of charcuterie would work well, too, as would a completely vegetarian filling. 

However, this time of year I like to hone in on pure comfort. For me, that means the most famous of Guangdong’s roster of ­chow faan dishes: Yangzhou fried rice, but with a couple of Hong Kong-style tweaks. 

The delicious stars of this show

Instead of ham, you get that sweet roast pork called char siu. This is balanced by fresh shrimp for sweetness and snap, a healthy dose of dried black mushrooms for their insane aroma, and nutty fresh soybeans to add more than a touch of color and a solid nuttiness. 

I do, of course, include a good amount of eggs for their yellow and their butteriness, but I cook them only partially before tossing them with the rice, so that much of the eggs end up wrapping themselves around the individual grains. 

I've changed this a bit from my previously-published recipe because I love the tidy bit of clumpiness that sushi-style rice provides here, making the serving of this fried rice from big old lotus leaves a whole lot easier. You might ask why you'd want to go to the extra step of using lotus leaves here. Well, in addition to being so unexpected and pretty, they also lend a gentle perfume to the rice, a sort of echo of summers past.

Line a bowl with the leaves

Another reason to find this recipe nothing short of fabulous is that this can be made a couple of days ahead of time. Yup. All you have to do is fry up the rice and pack it in the leaves. 

Let the package cool completely, cover, and refrigerate. Then, steam the lotus-wrapped rice about 40 minutes before you plan to serve it so that it’s hot and fresh. The only caveat is that the shrimp should only be barely cooked through, since they are going to be steamed and, thus, heated once again just before serving.

You can find whole dried lotus leaves in any good Chinese market, as well as online. They keep pretty much forever if stored in a dry, cool place. But check out my other recipes that call for lotus leaves in All Under Heaven—you’ll find that these aromatic leaves somehow disappear quickly as they scent everything from congee to chicken to pork. And now fried rice joins the club. 

Time to celebrate…

Fry eggs in the well

Lotus leaf fried rice

Héyè fàn 荷葉飯

Guangdong

Serves 4 to 6

About 6 cups | 800 g cooked cold sushi-style rice (see Tips)

2 or 3 dried lotus leaf soaked overnight (see Tips)

8 ounces | 225 g (3 or 4 large) plumped-up black mushrooms

Around 4 ounces | 120 g char siu (sweet roast pork)

Around 4 ounces | 120 g fresh or defrosted raw shrimp, cleaned and deveined

¼ cup | 60 ml fresh peanut or salad oil

1 green onion, trimmed and chopped

1 cup | 150 g defrosted, shelled green soybeans (maodou or edamame), or baby peas (see Tips)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Fluffy fried rice

2 large eggs

Sea salt, as needed

Freshly ground black pepper

1. Start this at least one day before you plan to serve it, although you can also have this in the fridge ready to steam for a couple of days. This is a very forgiving and versatile and accommodating dish (see the Tips), and so consider making this ahead of time for a party. Be sure the cooked rice is fully chilled before you proceed, as this will give you much lighter and tastier fried rice.

2. Toss the cold rice with your wet hands to break down the clumps into individual grains. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and cut them into ¼ inch | 5 mm cubes. Cut the char siu and shrimp into similarly sized cubes.

Pile it into the leaves

3. Set your wok over medium-high heat, and add the oil when pan is hot. Stir-fry the mushrooms until they take on a slightly golden edge, and then use a slotted spoon to remove them to a medium work bowl. Brown the char siu before adding it to that bowl. Stir-fry shrimp for only a few seconds, until they barely turn opaque, and then add them to the work bowl along with the defrosted soybeans or peas.

4. Add the green onions to oil in the wok and quickly fry these until fragrant. Turn up the heat to high and add the cold rice. Toss it frequently as you fry it. When the rice takes on a golden tinge and starts to pop a bit, make a well in the center of the rice all the way down to the bottom of the wok. Pour the sesame oil in the bottom of the well and then the beaten eggs. Stir the eggs as they cook down then, and when they are almost set, toss the rice and eggs together, since this will allow some of the eggs to coat the rice, while other bits remain separate. Toss in the salt, pepper, and the rest of the ingredients until they are evenly distributed. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed. (If you are making this ahead of time, wait until the fried rice has cooled down to room temperature before adding the shrimp. Wrap the rice in the lotus leaf as described in Step 5, cover the stuffed leaf with plastic wrap, and refrigerate it until about 30 minutes before serving.)

Poke holes in the leaves

5. Prepare a large steamer—an old wok with a trivet on the bottom works well— and have a heatproof 2-quart | 2-liter bowl ready. Wipe the lotus leaves clean on both sides. Center the leaves in the bowl (one on top of the other) with the cut stem side son the bottom and the smooth green sides facing you. Lightly pack all of the fried rice into the leaves and fold the edges of the leaves over the rice. Place an 8-inch | 20-cm wide plate over the bowl, and then flip the bowl over onto the plate. Use a chopstick to poke around 8 or so holes in the top of the leaf so that steam can escape. Set the plate in your steamer and steam the fried rice over high heat for about 20 minutes, or 30 minutes if it has been chilled.

6. To serve, cut a lid out of the top of the leaf and then set this jauntily against the rice. Serve the rice by scooping it out of the leaf at the table.

Tips

Cut open the top

Any good quality rice works well in this dish. I like California-grown sushi rice or Thai jasmine rice, but whatever you like will do. Be sure not to add any oil or butter or salt to this. You just want plain old rice here. 

Soak a couple of extra leaves here because it's hard to tell how perfect the leaves are while they're dry, and so sometimes they will look a bit ratty once they're plumped up. I like to use two leaves here just to ensure that the rice is safely contained. 

Vegans and vegetarians should feel more than welcome to substitute whatever looks good. A variety of fresh and dried mushrooms would be great, as well as braised doufu, more vegetables, and so forth. Really, just think of this as spruced-up fried rice and let your imagination take over.

Yangzhou fried rice done right

To many Chinese, this is the ne plus ultra of fried rice dishes. And I’d have to agree that Yangzhou's favorite rice dish really is a classic.  

Like pasta carbonara or a good ham and egg sandwich, the moving parts here make complete sense and are open to endless variation. In other words, try as you might, it’s really hard to mess this one up. But some folks seem determined to do just that. 

The problem, as always, with places that put Yangzhou Fried Rice – sometimes calling it something instead like Yangchow Fried Rice – on the menu is that the magic often isn’t there. It’s just fried rice with some scrambled eggs, bits of sweet roast pork, maybe a dash of soy sauce, a sprinkle of green onions. Standard fare, nothing too exciting.

Traditionalists in Jiangsu go to the opposite extreme, though, and pack way too much stuff in there, or at least that's my take on it. In an attempt to make this as luxurious and as memorable as possible, these folks decorate a simple masterpiece with way too many ornaments, with dried scallops, duck gizzards, bamboo shoots, black mushrooms, sea cucumbers, fresh pork, and chicken all fighting with each other in a bowl. What you end up with is the kitchen sink of fried rice dishes. Definitely not my style, either.

A home run

But when this dish is done right, it sparkles. As far as I’m concerned, if you really make this a perfect Yangzhou-style dish, stick with the basics: start with excellent long-grain rice, coat the cooked grains with fresh eggs so that each one has a golden jacket, season it with a bit of good country-style ham, and stud it with small langoustines or baby shrimp.  Other than a dash of salt, a bit of oil, and a dusting of chopped green onions, those are your ingredients, and you really don’t need anything else.

So let’s talk about the rice, since that should be the star of this show. Long-grain rice, as always, is perfect for fried rice because it’s not bulky, yet it possesses enough character to stand up to being cooked twice without breaking down. Softer rice – and especially sticky rice or overcooked rice of any kind – will gum up your wok, stick to your spatula, and refuse to play right, so get the right grain and then cook it correctly.

Hom Mali jasmine rice

Go to a busy health food store and head for the bulk bins, locate the long-grain rice, and start smelling them. What you want is something that has a fresh, sweet aroma, for these grains need to be able to hold their own against the other wonderful ingredients in this dish. I like especially jasmine rice here, and will happily play around with whatever smells particularly good that day. For this recipe I used Hom Mali Jasmine from Thailand, but use whatever looks (and smells) especially good to you.

Now, that bulk bin will probably have cooking directions on it, so write them down if you like. But the basic recipe is 1 part rice to 1½ parts water, and that’s it. No oil, no salt. You don’t even have to soak it. Just rinse the rice in a sieve, cover it with the right amount of water, bring it to a full boil, reduce the heat to the lowest possible, cover the pan, and cook it for 17 to 20 minutes. Check the rice to ensure it’s done, and then keep it covered for another 10 minutes to give the steam a chance to make each grain blossom fully. Then, let the rice come to room temperature and refrigerate it. 

Chilling the cooked grains is absolutely essential to achieving great fried rice, because it cuts down on the starchiness and allows the grains to maintain a sort of integrity and chewiness. And then, just before you start to fry the rice, you will want to wet your fingers and break that ball of rice up to make it as lump-free as possible.

Now you’re ready to start cooking.

Breakfast, lunch, or dinner

And if you're wondering what to do with those two extra egg whites, stay tuned for next week's recipe...

Yangzhou fried rice

Yángzhōu dàn chăofàn 揚州蛋炒飯

Jiangsu

Serves 4 as a main dish, 8 as a side

About 4 cups cooked, cooled long-grain rice (see headnotes and Tips)

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

Around 20 (4 ounces / 100 g) shelled langoustine tails or small shrimp, fresh or frozen and defrosted (size around 80/100), raw or cooked (see Tips)

Around 2 ounces (50 g) country-style ham or Hunan-style cured pork (see Tips)

4 tablespoons (60 ml) fresh peanut or vegetable oil

Around 1 teaspoon sea salt, preferably something flaky like Maldon (see Tips)

2 green onions, green leaves only, chopped into circles

1. If you haven’t done so already, cook the rice the day before you want to make this dish and chill it. Dump the rice into a large work bowl and use your wet fingertips to break up the lumps as much as possible. Lightly beat the eggs and yolks together and then toss them with the rice to coat each grain. These eggs, by the way, will also help get rid of any determined chunks of rice.

Egg mixed into the rice

2. Prep the shrimp or langoustines by removing any sandy veins and shells. Rinse them and pat them dry. Cut the ham into ⅛ inch (3 mm) cubes, more or less.

3. Set your wok over medium-high heat, and when it’s hot, add the oil and swirl it around the inside of the wok. First fry the langoustines or shrimp until they are barely cooked through (see Tips); use a slotted spoon to remove them to a small work bowl. Then, toss the ham in the oil until it is lightly browned before adding it to the shrimp. Drain any of the nicely seasoned oil back into the wok.

4. Now fry the rice: Take the wok off of the heat and let it cool down for about 2 minutes before adding all of the egg and rice mixture to the wok. Quickly toss the rice and eggs together away from the fire to gently glue the egg to the grains – starting them out on a relatively cool wok is the secret to this sort of golden egg fried rice, as the rice will then have the chance to get acquainted with the oil and gentle heat without turning into clumps of rice and eggs. Once the oil and rice and eggs have combined well, return the wok to medium-high heat and toss them continually with a wok spatula until the rice is hot; as you toss the rice, lift the spatula up and shake it so that it stays light and not clumpy. Add the shellfish, ham, and green onions, as well as salt to taste, and toss well. Serve hot.

Tips

You can use more or less cooked rice here without really affecting the dish. That being said, if you want to feed more people, and are serving this with other dishes, a cup more rice will be fine. But as a main course, don't stretch this out too far.

Buy only shrimp that are both wild and responsibly harvested. Slavery is still a problem with some shrimpers, especially in Southeast Asia, and farmed shrimp may not be the healthiest option, so do your homework and be careful. If you only can get ahold of cooked shrimp, that's fine - just be sure not to heat them for too long, as they will toughen, so merely try to get rid of the chill.

Chinese style ham

Many Chinese grocery stores will offer country-style hams, which means that it is not brined, but rather cured with salt and then pressed. This ham is generally sold as whole legs or in more easy to handle slices. Look for the smallest bone, the most meat, and no mold. A more Chinese-y flavored country ham is starting to appear in the markets around here, too (see the picture to the right). Made in the States, it's actually not bad at all when used as a seasoning, as in this recipe.

I like to use Maldon salt here because it’s added to the fried rice at the very last moment, which allows it to retain its lovely character. This way you get to enjoy little sparks of salt when you eat, and it’s a terrific touch. The amount of salt you add will depend upon a number of factors: the saltiness of the ham, what you’re serving the rice with, and whether it’s going to just be eaten on its own.