Sabah Rice Wine and a dish

This topic is mainly talking about how I made my 1st attempt of  Sabah homemade rice wine and making a dish with it, which is very popular in Sabah and also for women undergoing confinement period.

Lihing , Malaysian rice wine originates from Sabah , is made from glutinous rice and natural yeast. They were left to ferment for at least 3 months. The wine is either sweet, or bitter sweet but the most popular is the bitter sweet taste.

The natural rice wine yeast, also known as Sasad or Ragi by the locals, is actually made from mold and rice flour,  which is in a form of solid round pieces, as picture below shows.

This particular yeast is needed  for fermentation.

The amount of these yeast used, depends on the amount of rice we used. For example 5 kilo rice to the whole bag of yeast shown in the picture. 

This Sasad/ragi or rice wine yeast can be easily bought from the wet market . There are big, medium and small wine yeast hanging up for display and sale.

These smallest Rice Wine yeast are for making bitter sweet rice wine which is the most popular.

Medium size wine cake are for sweet wine which is not as popular because the wine can be too sweet for some people's taste.

Large wine yeast for  not so bitter or sweet rice wine, How true? So I bought these too for experiment.

There is some tobacco added to the bottom of the bag, to minimze the invasion of rice weavils, a kind of rice pest.

One of the stall vendors selling natural rice wine yeast and local tobacco( sigup) for years in the market. She admits she cannot make good Lihing as Darine, another vendor from the store next to her.

Darine, a friendly, active lady in her early 70's (she looks 10 years younger than her age), speaks good english. She told me how she learnt to make the  Lihing type of wine,  from her aunty who lived up to the age of 105 before she passed away. Darine believes Lihing has been introduced to Sabah for more than 200 years ago by the Chinese and after intermarriage with our natives, it has been passed on to the Sino Kadazan ( Chinese and Kadazan) and the Kadazan.

Darine has been making Lihing for many years now. Being an expert in Lihing, she said the best Lihing is still those bitter sweet one. Reminds me of my daughter's mother in law who is also an expert in Lihing, said the same, that the bitter sweet type is rated the best. Lihing gives good result if  fermented for 3-4 months old.
These 2 ladies don't mind posing their pictures for my blog😂

Ingredients for Sabah Rice wine

1 kilo of glutinous rice can produce about a bottle and half of Lihing

the whole of this rice wine yeast is for a 5 kilo rice

Therefore I only used 20 small cakes for a kilo of this yeast.

I put into a zip lock bag and crush the cake with a pounder or hammer to become powdery

Wine yeast ready to ferment the rice

Wash the glutinous rice. Some bloggers said not to wash the rice for better result but i still choose to wash. After 4 wash, the rice was drained.

and only half cooked the rice in the rice cooker.

Leave the rice out in a tray to cool.

Rice must be completely cooled or it will turn sour during fermentation

Sprinkle the crushed sasad/Ragi/ wine yeast over the cooled rice and mixed well

I  used a  clay pot to store the the well-mixed rice.

 Cover with cling plastic before placing the cover of the pot.

Task almost complete

Label the pot with date as a reminder when was the wine fermented started.I labelled it for 1 month but later changed my mind to 3 months.

Some Superstitious traditional ways of the Dos and Don'ts for preparing the rice wine

Quiet environment.

 happy mood or the wine will turn sour.

Don't touch the pot or eat sour stuff if one has period/menses.

How true was that?  I am not a believer but it is not difficult to follow these superstitious rules because in my house, we don't have children screaming their heads out or running about. To be in happy mood is also not difficult to follow because when you are in the mood to prepare something, you are actually happy. 

It makes more sense if I said we need to concentrate on  what we are doing😂. That's it!

Some like to add a little colour to the wine ,so adding a handful of  black or red glutinous rice will do the trick. 

I was told a half cooked rice is best as it helps to ferment better??? I am not sure😜

  My first attempt  Rice Wine -  A success 😂😋.

This rice wine shown here has been fermented in the clay pot for 3 months .

With the sieve , I slowly scooped out the wine with a cup to pour into a bottle.

Result of a 3 months old Rice wine during bottling which looked like soya bean milk- 23/11/2019

the next day the wine looks clearer - 24/11/2019

30/11/2019

One week later, it turned into a beautiful clear amber . I reused a whisky bottle and the wine looks like whisky😂😂😂

Chicken Wine is a very delicious and nutritious dish especially those undergoing confinement period.

Corn fed chicken meat are used preferably for it's texture and a good rice wine of course.

Black fungus, goji berries and ginger were added for more flavour.

When I was in my confinement period. my mother cooked a pot of chicken wine everyday for a month! It's a belief from old folks that it may help us recover faster😅 from our confinement period.

 Chicken Wine 

If you have followed my blog before, you may know that I have written a dish called Chicken in ginger wine. Yes. This recipe is the same except the wine used here is rice wine.
To make a good chicken wine, the wine is the key,but also the type of ginger  and selection of good cornfed chicken, makes the dish A1.

Ingredients:
half Chicken -chopped into bite pieces
5 Black fungus-woody ear
a handful of goji berries
1 thumbsize ginger
2 cup rice wine (Lihing)
200 ml chicken broth
2 tabsp cooking oil or sesame oil
 salt if needed

Method

1.Marinate chicken pieces with salt . Leave for at least 30 mins
2. slice ginger into thin slices
3. Heat 2 tabsp oil in a pot
4. Fry the ginger till slightly brown
5. Add Chicken pieces and fry a min
6. Add black fungus and goji berries
7. Let it cook for 2 min in slow fire
8.Add chicken stock
9. Let to boil and then simmer 15 mins
10. Add Lihing and simmer for 5 mins
11.Season according to your taste
Serve hot with rice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lihing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah