Gunma Wagyu Beef with Stir Fried Glutinous Rice
This recipe was created in collaboration with Gunma Wagyu Beef
Chinese New Year is all about abundance and what’s better than an indulgent and luxurious meal.
Grilled Wagyu beef with stir-fried glutinous rice or in Cantonese, Sang Chow Loh Mai Fan, this is a perfect combination for the celebrations.
About Joshu Wagyu
A5 Joshu Wagyu beef is from the Gunma prefecture where they breed pedigree Japanese black cattle. This highly marbled wagyu is one of the most highly prized both in Japan and abroad.
A5 wagyu is the highest grade wagyu as defined by the Japanese beef grading system. When cooked, this beef is tender and has a terrific beef flavour. In Chinese food, we use this wagyu beef for the tenderness and it works really well in quick stir fry dishes with a variety of vegetables.
About Stir Fried Loh Mai Fan
This popular glutinous rice dish is found on a lot of dim sum menus and in many home cooks’ repertoire.
My recipe is all cooked in one wok or pan without the need to pre-steam the rice beforehand. I find the extra step of steaming the rice in a muslin cloth really messy and intimidating for a lot of home cooks. And the good thing is that you don’t have to. You can do it all in one wok, in not a lot of time.
For Chinese New Year, this rice dish is great for celebrations as it includes luxurious ingredients like dried “flower mushrooms”, a higher quality dried shitake mushroom and also sometimes, dried scallops and even chestnuts.
In this recipe, I’ve used the more easily available dried shrimps which gives the dish a lovely umami note.
This dish is made even more luxurious and decadent, by serving it with grilled A5 Gunma Wagyu beef.
These slices of beef are cut into 8mm thickness for yakiniku, Japanese barbecue (you don’t want the thin slices for shabu shabu as those will overcook too quickly).
These highly marbled cuts of beef will grill beautifully on a griddle pan and you can then bursh on some of the delicious “eel sauce” seasoning. Eel sauce doesn’t contain eels, it is just the seasoning typically used for seasoning Japanese grilled eels which is delicious.
To add some acid to balance the dish, I served it with some quick Chinese cucumber pickles.
How to cook stir-fried Glutinous Rice
As it a lot of Chinese dishes, there is a lot of preparation ahead of cooking the dish. Once you have everything assembled, it is quite easy. No complicated techniques of implements are required.
This dish does not take that long to cook but the preparation of soaking the rice and cutting up all the ingredients will take a bit of time.
Other Chinese recipes you might like to make for that family Chinese meal
Stir-Fried Glutinous Rice or Loh Mai Fan
Ingredients
- 400 g glutinous rice
- 4 lap cheung Chinese wind-dried sausage
- 1 or 2 yuen cheung wind dried liver sausage optional
- 50 g dried shrimp
- 50 g dried shiitake mushrooms
- 5 pieces dried scallops (optional)
- 8 sprigs spring onions
- 1 tsp white pepper to taste
- 200 ml Soaking liquid
- Cold pressed rape seed oil for stir frying.
Instructions
- Wash the glutinous rice and rinse it several times until the water is clear. Use a large bowl and cover the rice with plenty of water and soak for at least three hours or overnight. The rice will expand as it absorbs the water so you need the big bowl for the space. Do check after a couple of hours if you need to add more water. The rice should stay submerged.
- On the day you want to cook the rice, you will to need prepare the other ingredients.
- Rinse the dried shitake mushrooms and soak them in boiking water for at least 30 minutes. Drain the mushrooms but keep the soaking liquid liquid for later. Cut off the stalks and dice the mushroom into about 5mm pieces.
- Rinse the dried shrimp to remove any sand or bits of shell. Then soak in hot water for about the same time as the mushrooms. Drain the shrimps but keep the soaking liquid. Give these a rough chop to break them into smaller pieces, NOT finely chopped.
- If you are using dried scallops, you will need to presoak these too. Use boiling water and leave to soak for at least 2 hours and save the soaking liquid again.
- To cut the lap cheung, quarter them lengthwise, then dice these into the same size as the mushrooms.
- Slice all the spring onions and set aside.
- Prepare the rice seasoning by mixing all the ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. You can add a tablespoon of soaking liquid to loosen this up if necessary.
- To start cooking, use a wok or a big saute pan with deep sides.
- On a high heat, add 1 tbsp oil to the wok and add in the lap cheung. This will render the fragant oil from the lap cheung. Stir fry for about 1 minute, moving the sausages with a spatula constantly to prevent burning.
- Add the diced mushrooms and shrimp and keep stirring it all together for about 2-3 minutes. You will see that any fat in the bottom of the wok will have been absorbed by the mushrooms and you will start to smell the umami notes from the shrimp.
- The point when this is ready is when you start to hear popping sounds from the bottom of the wok. This happens after all the fat has been absored. Remove from wok into a bowl and set aside.
- In the same wok, add another tablespoon of oil and pour in the soaked rice. Pour in a dash of the retained soaking liquid. On a high heat, keep stirring the rice until the water has been absorbed.
- Add more water and keep stirring. Repeat.
- After about 5 minutes, taste the rice. We want to get to an al dente stage where the outside is starting to turn translucent and you can still see the white dot in the middle. You don't want the rice to be too mushy as you want the final dish to have distinct rice grains. You can test the rice by squishing some between your fingers or taking a bite.
- When the rice has been cooked to the right stage, add back the meat and mushrooms mixture. Stir into the rice until evenly spread. Watch your heat at this point, you might need to turn it down to a medium heat.
- Add in the spring onions with some reserved for garnish. Stir well.
- Pour over the prepared soy seasoning and stir until the rice is evenly coloured. Add a pinch of white pepper to taste.
- Serve immediately in rice bowls or in a big bowl to share.
Notes
I like to serve this along with some stir fried green vegetables or as part of a multi-course meal.
You can keep this dish in the fridge and warm up in a microwave when you want to have it later. Do not steam as the liquid will turn the rice into an unpleasant mush.
A5 Gunma Wagyu Beef is available from Asian Harvest website.
Recommended equipment
To make this recipe, you will need to following pieces of kit which you can find on Amazon.
Ninja foodie wok with lid
I really like this Ninja Foodi Zerostick wok as you can heat it up to a very high heat, the heat is well distributed and it is non stick. Even the sticky rice in this dish came off the bottom easily.
Getting a big enough wok with a lid is an essential item in the kitchen. It is not only useful for cooking Chinese food but is great for all sorts of other dishes too. I use mine to make omelettes, simmer, braise or even deep fry and shallow fry. A deep wok with a lid is especially useful for steaming food.
Saute pan with lid
If a wok is not available, use a big frying pan or a deep saute pan instead. Again as above, get one with a lid as this will come in useful when you cook all sorts of dishes.
Wok spatula with silicon edge or full silicon
The wok spatulas with silicon are great to use on all your non stick cookware and it works really well in making sure you scoop up all the sauce when you stir fry.
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