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Lo Mai Gai

A steamed rice parcel wrapped in lotus leaf, filled with chicken, Chinese sausage, mushrooms, and seasonings.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and chicken match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 4,171 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

The recipe

8 wraps
Time15 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, soy, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Soak lotus leaves in hot water for 1 hour, then pat dry.

  2. Soak glutinous rice in water for 1 hour, then drain.

  3. Line a bamboo steamer with parchment paper or cabbage leaf.

  4. Fill a wok with water to about the half-way point and bring water to a boil.

  5. Cover the rice and steam for about 20 minutes.

  6. Remove the rice, cover and keep warm.

  7. Soak dried mushrooms in hot water for 20 to 30 minutes.

  8. Squeeze out excess water, remove stems, and finely chop mushrooms.

  9. Cut chicken into small cubes.

  10. Add salt, 1 tablespoon rice wine, and 1 teaspoon cornstarch to the chicken.

  11. Marinate the chicken for 20 minutes.

  12. Finely chop Chinese sausages.

  13. Peel and chop garlic.

  14. Combine rice wine, light soy sauce, and dark soy sauce in a small bowl.

  15. Dissolve cornstarch in 1 tablespoon water in a separate bowl and whisk into the sauce.

Make the filling

  1. Heat a wok and add 2 tablespoons oil.

  2. When the oil is hot, add garlic and stir-fry until aromatic (about 30 seconds).

  3. Add chicken cubes to the wok and stir-fry until the chicken turns white and is 80% cooked through.

  4. Add sausages and mushrooms to the wok and stir-fry for 1 minute.

  5. Re-stir the sauce mixture, add it to the wok, and stir quickly to thicken.

  6. Season with pepper to taste.

  7. Cook for 1 to 2 more minutes to mix everything together and heat through.

  8. Remove from heat and stir in sesame oil.

  9. Cool the filling.

Wrap and steam

  1. Separate the rice and the filling into 8 equal sections, one for each wrap.

  2. Lay out a lotus leaf and place a portion of the rice mixture in the center.

  3. Add the meat and vegetable mixture on top, shaping the rice with your hands to form a ring around the filling.

  4. Add more rice to cover the filling.

  5. Form a square parcel with the lotus leaf and tie it up with twine.

  6. Repeat with the remaining lotus leaves.

  7. Steam the lotus leaf parcels, covered, on a heatproof plate in a bamboo steamer for 15 minutes, or until they are done.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mushroom + chickentop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Rice + chickentop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,569 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Rice + sesametop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together643 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Chicken + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,839 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Lotus + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Glutinous rice
Its high starch turns soft and sticky when steamed, holding the parcel together.
Chicken breast
Provides the main protein; cornstarch marinade keeps the cubes tender during stir-frying.
Chinese dried black mushrooms
Add concentrated savory flavor and a chewy texture to the filling.
Chinese sausages
Contribute fat and savory, slightly sweet flavor that seasons the rice as it steams.
Dark soy sauce
Adds color and a deeper, caramel-like savory flavor to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the filling and rice.

The step that matters

Stir-frying the chicken to 80% cooked. Chicken is partly cooked before steaming; stopping at about 80% keeps it juicy, since the remaining heat in the parcel finishes cooking it.

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lotus, rice, mushroom, chicken, rice wine, sauce, sesame):

  1. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  2. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lotus, rice, mushroom, chicken, rice wine, sauce, sesame. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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