Dragon boat festival is a traditional festival originated from China. Although I am only a third generation Chinese and we have even moved across the ocean from where I was born, I still have fond memories of this festival, especially the food and my family. Since we did not live in my grandfather's origin land anymore, the memory of the Dragon boat festival for me, is more about the glutinuous rice dumpling, that my grandmother always made during this festival.
Usually, my father would wrap the rice dumpling. His motivation learning to wrap was not only to help my grandmother, but also to give a mark, which rice dumpling had more filling that the others. I always love to listen to his story, coming from a family of 5 brothers they had to compete with each other. Now, I have my own small boys, I understand more of this kind of brotherly competition. My boys compete hard with each other, but they love each other a lot. When somebody in their class has a birthday and share a treat (usually cake, or cookie, or candy, or some small toys), they will keep half of the treat and bring it home for their brother.
Back to the rice dumpling. At the country where I grew up, Indonesia, I learned that there were a few types of savoury rice dumpling. But of course, there is always some adjustment and a twist from the original version. I knew at least two types of adjusted version of savoury rice dumpling, either filled with minced pork meat or with pork belly. An important ingredient is salted duck egg yolk. I made my own salted duck egg, because I wanted to make the rice dumpling and salted egg yolk custard bread (this hopefully will be my future posting), while my husband wanted to eat porridge with salted duck egg.
What I just found out, is that one of the ingredients of the Cantonese version is mung bean. I found that when I was searching for types of savoury rice dumpling, their origin, and the story behind the rice dumpling.
Making rice dumpling needs determination and a lot of motivation. It begins from planning of the time and preparation of the ingredients two days before the "real" work.
I am going to list the ingredients, the marinade ingredients and stir-fry ingredients for each components of the rice dumpling below. And in the paragraphs following the ingredients list, you can find the list of the preparation you need to do according to the timelines.
Main Ingredients
1.2 kg glutinuous rice (note: I used 0.1kg rice: 1.1kg glutinuous rice composition since I find the combination nicer, or you can use also glutinuous rice only)
100 gram dried shrimp
400 gram dried yellow split mung bean (without the skin)
150 gram chinese shitake mushroom sliced (note: I used the sliced dried mushroom, this saves me the time to cut and easier to assemble)
10 cloves garlic
3-4 big shallot (note: I do not find small shallot here, I used the big ones, this may be equal to around 10 small shallot)
12-14 salted duck egg yolk (note: I made it myself, so I get the nice orange colour and oily egg yolk)
1 kg pork (note: I used a mixed of 60% pork shoulder and 40% pork belly/the three layer part of the pork)
Bamboo leaves (around 80 pieces)
Marinade/Sauce (for the amount, refer to each component below)
Salt
Pepper
Five spice powder
Oyster sauce
Chinese cooking wine
Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Sugar
Dried Shrimp
1 tablespoon oil (to fry)
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tbsp shallot
Mushroom
1/2 tablespoon oil (to fry)
1/2 tbsp garlic
1/2 tbsp shallot
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp salt
Mung Bean
1/2 tablespoon oil (to fry)
1 tbsp shallot
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp pepper
2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp five spice powder
Glutinuous Rice
1 tablespoon oil (to fry)
2 tbsp shallot
1 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp five spice powder
1/2 tbsp pepper
1.5 tbsp dark soy sauce
Pork meat marinade
3 tbsp oyster sauce
4 tbsp chinese cooking wine
8 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp pepper
1.5 tbsp five spice powder
Overal sequence
The sequence, after all ingredients is ready, in general can be described as follows:
1. (at least 1 day before assembly and cooking) Cut the pork meat into cubes, in the size you prefer for the filling. Marinade the pork meat and keep it in the refrigerator until we use it.
2. (the day before assembly and cooking) Boil the bamboo leaves in a pot full of water and add 1 tablespoon of oil. The extra oil will help the leaves to be a bit moist when we use them and not easily break. Boil the leaves for around 5 minutes after the water boils and let them to cool in the pot. Soak tem overnight. When we want to use it on the assembling day, rinse the leaves and wipe them with kitchen towel.
3. (the day before assembly and cooking) Peel the garlic and shallot. Mince the garlic and shallot and keep them apart in a air tight container in the refrigerator.
4. (the day before assembly and cooking) Cut the egg yolk into halves and keep them in air thight container in the refrigerator.
5. (the night before assembly and cooking) Rinse the rice once and soak it overnight. Rinse also the mung bean and soak it overnight. Rinse the mushroom and soak it for at least 1 hour. Put everything aside and cover them with cling film/plastic wrap.
6. (the day of assembly and cooking).
- Soak the dried shrimp for around half an hour, and throw the water away after that.
- Stir fry the dried shrimp with the listed ingredients and put aside
- Stir fry the mushroom with the listed ingredients and put aside
- Stir fry the mung bean with the listed ingredients and put aside
- Stir fry the rice and with the listed ingredients. As a note: when you stir fry the rice, use medium low heat because we do not want to cook it up before we do the assembly. We only want to incorporate the other ingredients into the rice. Put the rice aside and we are ready to assemble the rice dumpling.
7. (the day of assembly and cooking) Take two leaves, arrange them next to each other in overlap position and make a cone at the lower end of the leaves by twisting the leaves. Fill in with:
- 1 tablespoon of rice
- around 3-4 dried shrimp
- egg yolk
- mushroom
- the marinated meat
- 1 tablespoon mung bean
- 2 tablespoon rice
Make sure that the assembly of the rice dumpling is quite firm to ensure that the rice dumpling can be wrapped tightly. Take another leave, position it overlap with the righ side leave and wrap it around the opening of the dumpling. Fold the leave tightly and tie it firmly.
For the method of wrapping that I used, you can refer to this tutorial from Christine's recipe.
The above tutorial is not the piramide shape rice dumpling, but I find this shape easier for me, and I can make bigger rice dumpling that can be eaten for my children lunch.
8. (the day of assembly and cooking) After we assemble the rice dumpling, fill in the pressure cooker pot with the rice dumpling until the maximum allowed and fill the pot with water to cover the rice dumplings. Set the pressure cooker in high pressure cooking option for 30 minutes. After all the pressure is released, take out the dumplings and let the water drip away before we serve the dumpling.
The rice dumpling can be kept for a few days in the refrigerator or a few weeks in the freezer. I usually save some for later consuming. It turned out that although the cooking process is quite long and a lot of effort is needed, the taste and the shape is not very dissapointing. My husband and children love it and they enjoy the dumpling for their lunch. We usually eat the dumpling by dipping a corner of the dumpling in the light soy sauce. My children love to use the soy sauce that I usually use for eating sushi more than the soy sauce I use for cooking chinese food when they eat the dumpling.
May be, if you have time, you can also try to make the dumpling. Happy eating and enjoy your family!
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