Lo Mai Gai (Lotus-wrapped Chicken with Sticky Rice)

I keep fuckin' losing this recipe because I am senile. I think I've rewritten it like 2 dozen times for Marie, and whenever I go to make it in her little kitchen sweatshop, I have to remember it all over again from scratch, or call my mom. So here it is, pasted in here, once and for all.

Ingredients:

4 lotus leaves cut into quarters

5 or 6 cups of sweet rice (not Japanese sticky rice - some people call this "Botan rice")

2 chicken breasts

3 or 4 chinese sausages

6-10 dried shiitake mushrooms (depending on size)

3-4 tbsp dried shrimp, chopped up

1 tsp chili sauce (anything better than sriracha, but that'll work in a pinch)

shaoxing cooking wine

oil

soy sauce

pepper (black)

cornstarch

- Soak the leaves and rice overnight

- Cut up the chicken and mix with oil, pepper, and some soy sauce. Marinate for 30 minutes.

- Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water until they're soft. Save the mushroom water. Chop up the dried shrimps and soak them in the cooking wine.

- Steam the chinese sausage

- When all the above things are marinated/soaked/cooked etc, cut them all up into little pieces

- Heat up a wok. Fry the shrimp and wine with a tsp of chili sauce. Throw in the chicken and fry until that's cooked. Add mushroom and chinese sausage. Stir up some cornstarch with the mushroom water and some soy sauce (this is going to be the "sauce" that moistens and flavors the rice. If you like your lo mai gai saucy, then make more of this sauce). Add this slurry to the wok and cook until it thickens into a sauce on the other ingredients.

- Take one soaked leaf quarter, put it vein-side-up on the table. Put a couple tbsp soaked rice in the center. Scoop in some chicken and sauce. Top with a little more rice. Fold up and put it in the steamer. Steam all the packets for 1 hour.