Duan Wu Jie (aka Dragon Boat Festival)

Well, the last time I wrote about these was in 2009, and when I went home this weekend to help make zongzi, my mom said "What, you need to take pictures again??" Well yes, yes I do! So here is another post on one of my favorite foods ever!


I always refer to these as sticky rice dumplings, but I don't know if that's really an accurate name. At any rate, they are parcels of sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, and either filled with pork or sweet red bean paste. The fillings vary by region (and by family) but in our family, we make them Shanghai style (so my mom says) filled only with pork. Other styles may include salted egg yolks or chestnuts or pure giant chunks of pork fat etc. But I like them our way the best.


Both the pork and the rice are marinated first in soy sauce (and other seasonings). The bamboo leaves come dried, so you have to soak them, boil them, and scrub them before they can be used. Fortunately, all of that hard work was handled by my mom, and I was just needed for the actual wrapping.


So you make a cone out of the bamboo leaves, add a spoonful of rice to the bottom, a big chunk of pork, and then top it all off with more rice, as my mom is demonstrating here.


You then fold the extra leaves down and to the side to seal in all the goodies, and then tie the whole thing shut and end up with...


This! A nice, neat bundle of deliciousness. This is one of my mom's--you can tell because she's tucked all the extra leaf away neatly.


And this is one of mine, after cooking. As you can see, I like to leave my extra leaf bits stick up--I think it looks nicer this way. And personally (and I said this last time too, haha) I think mine look better ;) But the really important thing is the taste, and that is always flawless, thanks to my mom's preparation.


Mmmm, sticky rice and pork....we made a mere 66 this year (plus another 20 sweet ones, filled with red bean paste) which means I will have to eat them sparingly to make them last. But I think I will go have one for breakfast, it is the day of the actual festival, after all....

Dragon Boat Festival!

I don't think anyone would be surprised to know that my favorite festivals are the ones that revolve around food. Fortunately, most of the Chinese ones seem to involve food in some capacity!

Anyway, it is just a few days to Duan Wu Jie (the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar; this year, that's May 28th) and what better time to share the zongzi, THE traditional food for this holiday. Zongzi is the Mandarin term, by the way. I can't remember quite when my mom first taught me how to fold them, but it's been...hm...well, a pretty long time ago. It's kind of a time consuming process and as I understand it, a lot of families no longer make their own, opting instead for the ones offered in groceries or by restaurants. Which is all well and good, but I only like the ones WE make. More importantly though, I think of this as kind of a family tradition, one in which technique and skills are passed down (along with a liberal helping of taunting my mother). And with that in mind, I strongly encourage you to try making these; as I said, they do take a bit of time and preparation (and sourcing of ingredients) but I think you will find it extremely rewarding.

(You can read a bit about the back story of zongzi at Wikipedia.)


So honestly, I think the majority of the work is in the preparatory stage. Which, I am very ashamed to say, my mother handled all of. But here are the main ingredients you need (and hopefully mom will pipe up and tell me if I missed anything). I can't give quantities because that depends greatly on how many you are planning to make, but my principle is THE MORE PORK THE BETTER!!:

Pork belly, cut into chunks and marinated in pork broth and soy sauce
Glutinous rice, soaked in water and soy sauce
Bamboo leaves, which you purchase dry and then boil until softened. After that, you have to scrub them clean and then snip off the sharp ends.

You should also have some kitchen string to tie them up; our packet of bamboo leaves came with bamboo "string" but any old kitchen twine will do.


When you are ready, drain your rice in a sieve. To form the dumplings, take two bamboo leaves, one on top of the other (with the veined side down). Your aim is to fold them in such a way as to form a cone, with the midpoint of the leaves as the bottom point. You should then be holding the cone in one hand with the open top facing you as you see in the photo above. Put a spoonful or two of rice into the cone; you want it to be just under halfway full.


Add a chunk or two of the marinated pork, and then top with rice, basically up to the edge. Other variations of the zongzi include salted egg yolks, beans, mushrooms, and so on, so feel free to experiment.


You want to pat the rice down to compact it a bit, but don't pack it down too much as you need to leave a little room for it to expand. (Doesn't my mom have nice hands?)


Okay, now the slightly tricky bit. Fold the loose ends down towards the hand holding the cone; at the same time, you want to use the cone fingers to push the top sides of the leaves in a little. Continue to fold the loose leaf ends to the right of the cone. The goal of course, is to enclose the entire open surface with the loose leaf ends. I guarantee that the first few times you try to do this that you will have rice escaping; don't worry. It'll come to you. It helps to underfill the cone a little at first.


You now have in your hand a folded dumpling with some excess leaves sticking out of one side. Don't lose your grip! You now need to tie the dumpling shut with your kitchen twine; I recommend that you hold one end in your teeth and with your free hand, wrap the dumpling around the middle (see the next photo). You want it fairly tight so the leaves don't unwrap themselves. Snip off the excess string and congratulations! You have a zongzi!


You can see in this photo where the string should go (the zongzi is upside down here). You can trim off the excess leaves if you want, but I personally think they kind of look nicer this way. All you need to do now is cook! We make enough to fill a giant stockpot and boil it for several hours (almost overnight). I don't think you can reeeaaally overcook these. Once they are done, drain them, wash them, and let them dry. Then you can store them (we keep some in the freezer) or eat them immediately!


I hope you have enjoyed this (very long-winded) tutorial on how to make your own delicious zongzi, and I hope that some of you will try making these and maybe add a new tradition to your family!