It's early morning on a weekday, you're rushing to work, and your stomach is audibly letting you know that skipping a meal is definitely not in the cards. I think everywhere's got their grab-and-go breakfast of choice – in New York, it's a bagel with a shmear of cream cheese. If you're in Paris, you're probably looking at a croissant.
And in the city of Guiyang in Southwest China, that breakfast is decidedly nuomifan – a bowl of seasoned sticky rice with a mound of chili-laced toppings.
It's said that this on-the-go tradition of a sticky rice breakfast first started as a way for farmers in the mountains to bring something filling along with them as they traveled the rugged terrain, but even today in Guiyang around sun-up you can barely walk a block without bumping into a breakfast nuomifan vendor.
Now, of course, for you, I do know you're probably not gunna be whipping up a bowl of this stuff as you're scrambling to get to work. Instead, you can maybe think of it as an option for weekend brunch sorta thing… though of course it's also perfectly delicious any time of day.
Making the Rice
Long grain glutinous rice (江米), 400g. This style of sticky rice is the same as the Thai style.
Lard, 2 tbsp.
Salt, ¼ tsp.
Light soy sauce (生抽), 1 tbsp.
Process:
Wash the glutinous rice 4-5 times, or until the water loses ~half its opacity. Add water an inch over the rice, and let it soak in the fridge overnight.
Drain, add to a steamer over a wet cloth. Poke some holes in the rice with your fingers. Steam for 25 minutes total.
About halfway (10 minutes) into the steaming, sprinkle ~1 pint of water over the rice to prevent drying out. Continue to steam another 15 minutes, then remove.
Melt 2 tbsp of lard over a medium flame, and continue to heat until it reaches ~170C (or until you see faint wisps of smoke). Shut off the heat, add 1 tbsp light soy sauce and ¼ tsp salt. Fry together for ~30 seconds.
Add in the sticky rice. Mix well for a couple minutes to get the seasoning roughly marbled throughout.
Serve with desired toppings.
Rice Cooker Method: Wash the rice 4-5 times, or until the water loses half its opacity.
Add into the rice cooker but use the 'brown rice' line when adding water. E.g. if you're using 2 cups of rice, add enough water to get to '2 cups' line on the brown rice marker. Cook the rice with the normal 'white rice' function, then continue with the frying/mixing as above.
Note that Not all rice cooker models seem to do a good job with sticky rice. We use a Zojirushi (i.e. a fancy rice cooker), which seems to play pretty well with it. No need to soak your sticky rice if using a rice cooker.
Toppings
To top (per serving):
Lao Gan Ma chili crisp, ~1 tbsp.
Sugar, ~¼ tsp.
Pickled Daikon, minced, ~1 tbsp.
Fish wort -or- cilantro, minced, ~1 tbsp.
Scallion, sliced, ~1 tbsp.
Guizhou cracklins -or- crumpled up fried bacon.
Roast peanuts, halved.