Lap Mei Fan – Lynne Lee-Diep

臘味飯

Lap Mei Fan (Cured meat/Dried Seafood Glutinous Rice) 

Savoury dishes are rarely followed froma  recipe but are recreated from watching parents cooking… This is how I cooked my rice today – obviously it’s adaptable to your tastes/what you can get hold of as in: dried seafood/cured meats….

1 stick of lap yuk, rind and excess fat trimmed (personal preference how much fat you want)1 whole dried flattened squid (body of mine was roughly 8 inches long) Rinsed in warm water2 tbsp dried clams – rinsed in warm water 4 tbsp dried king prawns6-8 chinese mushrooms, rinsed, snipped into slices and soaked in boiling water.1 shallot1/2 red onion3 spring onions – finely sliced

1 scoop jasmine rice1 scoop glutinous rice

Rinse the dried seafood (clams and king prawns) then cover with hot water & soak for 20 minutes.If the squid is very dry, soak in a little hot wtare to soften slightly.Finely slice the lap yuk & set aside.Finely chop the shallot and red onion.

Put both types of rice in rice bowl and rinse until water is clear. Add the soaking liquid from the clams and dried prawns, discard the liquid at very bottom in case of any grit. Add a little less liquid than you normally would do for cooking jasmine rice. I used 2 measuring scoops of rice so my water level came upto 1 3/4 cup mark inside the rice cooker bowl.Put rice on to cook.Snip the dried prawns into 4 pieces, snip the squid into similar sized pieces.

In a wok/frying pan, add a little veg/sunflower oil, fry the onion and shallot for 1 minute, then add the lap yuk until it starts to get a little golden and crispy (not frazzled) around the edges. Add in the dried seafood, sliced chinese mushrooms and about half a cup of water. Season with soy sauce (I went twice round the pan) sweeten with 2 tsp granulated sugar. Cook gently and stir occasionally until almost all the water has been absorbed/evaporated. When the rice cooker lever pings, add the seafood/meat mix to the top of the rice. Top with spring onions and replace lid and allow to steam for 10-15 minutes. Stir well to distribute the topping into the rice before serving.

Lap Cheong is very good in this dish and I would add 1 stick of lap cheong (finely sliced) with the lap yuk if I had some. You can also add some sliced lap aap (Wind-dried duck) with the cured meat as well.Dried scallops are luxurious in this dish as well. Using half glutinous and half jasmine rice is supposed to make it lighter and less heavy on the stomach (so my parents told me).