The sweet aroma of this dish brings flowers to mind. The root of the lotus plant is stuffed with sticky rice, slow cooked in a sweet broth until tender, sliced to reveal the floral pattern, and drizzled with flowery osmanthus syrup. Honey lotus root with sticky rice is a classic and special appetizer from Southern China, and is particular to Jiangsu, a province adjacent to Shanghai. Lotus root is stuffed with sticky rice, boiled with sugar until tender, then served with a sweet and refreshing osmanthus syrup. Although the dish is sweet, and is referred to as a dessert sometimes, it is always served as an appetizer in local restaurants. Lotus root is a popular ingredient in Chinese cooking and Chinese medicine due to its health benefits. Lotus root contains a moderate number of calories for a root vegetable. It’s high in dietary fiber and vitamins C and B and contains a good amount of important minerals. Fresh lotus root can be added to stews, salads, soups, and stir fried and braised dishes. It can be ground into powder to make drinks, or to processed to make lotus starch. It’s a very important part of Chinese cuisine, in the same way the potato is to American food culture.
In this dish, the lotus root will lose most of its crispiness and crunchy texture during simmering and become very tender. The glutinous rice tastes gooey, sweet, and infused with a nice aroma from the lotus root. The osmanthus syrup has a flowery fragrance, an amber color, and sweet taste. It adds a nice touch to the whole dish. You might find that all the ingredients in this recipe look unfamiliar. The truth is, it’s really easy and fun to cook this dish, and you can find all of the ingredients in most Asian markets. It is definitely not a dish that you want to cook on a weekday, because the rice stuffing process requires some patience. This dish is easy to cook in large quantities in advance, to be served the following day. So for that reason I consider it a great party food, especially if you want to surprise your guests. Take note, that although the rice has “glutinous” in its name, it’s actually gluten-free.
A Few Cooking Tips
Soak glutinous rice for at least 3 hours, up to overnight, so it can be cooked through and create a better mouthfeel. Rock sugar can be replace by white sugar, if you don’t have rock sugar in your pantry. Stuff the root carefully and try to fill up all the tubes with glutinous rice. It’s time consuming work. I like to sit down and turn on my favorite show during this step. It’s a great way to relax! Leave some space at the end of the tubes when you stuff the glutinous rice, because the rice will expand during cooking. Osmanthus syrup can be replaced by honey if you cannot find osmanthus. Honey lacks the refreshingness of the syrup, but adds a special richness to the dish. I consider it just as nice as the syrup.
Behind the Scenes
Honey lotus root is one of my favorite appetizers and I always order it in local restaurants whenever I see it on the menu. When I had just started this blog, it was one of the earliest dishes that I planned to share, but I didn’t hit the publish button until now. The photo was darn difficult to shoot and the dish looked horrible in the photo, no matter how good the dish tasted. I almost gave up on this one when I had just finished the cooking and placed the lotus slices on the plate. The rice stuffing had a similar pale color to that of the lotus root. The whole dish was lacking in color, dimension, and texture in the photo. My instinct was that it was too ugly to put on the blog! But somehow, I followed through and started styling. In the end, I tried to pop out some of the rice stuffing to show the hollow part of the lotus root. It revealed the shape of the lotus tube and worked out great! And the dish looked much better after I put extra syrup on top. Great lesson learned, there is no ugly food, and you’ll get where you want to go if you try really hard!
