I did it! Haha. Yes, I successfully made rice dumplings or zong zi for the first time. Yay!
Well, I really really love eating rice dumplings especially those made by my mum. Whenever I visit Malaysia, my mum would prepare these yummy rice dumplings for me regardless the time of the year. So I eat it for breakfast and tea break everyday until the stock is finished. As the dragon boat festival (that's when Chinese people eat rice dumplings or zong zi) is around the corner, I decided to make my own rice dumplings by following my mum's recipe simply because I can't find any nice rice dumplings around Melbourne! Yup, they actually sell them here (that's how multicultural Melbourne is) around this time but they aren't nice at all. Not to mention, they're expensive considering that there aren't much ingredients in the dumplings sold here!
There's no problem in getting all the ingredients I need to make the rice dumplings in Melbourne. In fact, you can get everything in an Asian grocer like Hometown Asian supermarket. However, the locally made fresh salted egg is really expensive and the quality is not as good as those you get in Malaysia. Somehow, the salted egg yolks from the fresh salted eggs aren't as solid and are a bit runny. Besides that, I'm not into cooked-salted-eggs from China. Luckily, there's this locally made frozen salted egg yolks (yup, egg yolks only. They removed the egg white and packed all the egg yolks in a box) available in the frozen department of Hometown Asian supermarket. It's not cheap (10 frozen egg yolks for AUD15), but at least it guarantees that I get these solid salted egg yolks for making my dumplings. So if you have time, do make your own salted eggs at home!
We're lucky to have fresh chestnut from the local produce. So I used fresh chestnuts instead of dried chestnuts. It's also worthwhile to mention that the bamboo leaves usually come with strings. However, the string snapped every time I tied the dumplings. Thank goodness I've a roll of cooking rope in my pantry for tying the dumplings. Hence, make sure you have some ropes around for backup if you decide to use the bamboo strings. Other than that, I must admit that it's a bit hard to wrap the dumplings at the beginning especially if the dumpling is big. However, after a few wraps, you'll get the hang of it when you gain more confidence.
Overall, making rice dumplings is very time consuming. From my perspective, the time spent for preparation and wrapping the dumplings isn't too extensive. However, boiling the dumplings on the stove for 2-3 hours is really a long process. I came across some discussions in a forum where people shared their experience in using a pressure cooker for cooking rice dumplings. Apparently, the cooking time was reduced to only 15mins!! Well, I haven't tried that as I don't have a pressure cooker at the moment. I reckon it's worth trying if you have one.
Recipe:
(make about 26 rice dumplings)
500g pork belly (without skin)
8 dried mushrooms (I used big dried mushrooms)
1kg glutinous rice
120g dried shrimps
1 garlic (about 10 cloves)
20 shallots (can be more to give more flavor)
26 chestnuts
13 salted egg yolks
60 bamboo leaves (2 leaves for each dumpling and extra for backup)
Bamboo strings/cooking rope (enough to tie all the dumplings)
3 tablespoons oil
Seasoning for glutinous rice:
1 tablespoon salt
Marinade for pork belly:
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons five spice powder
1 tablespoon dark (caramel) soya sauce
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon Shao xing cooking wine
1 tablespoon light soya sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Preparing the ingredients:
1. Cut pork belly into 2-3cm pieces, marinade and keep it overnight in the fridge.
2. Soak bamboo leaves and strings in water overnight. Make sure that the water covers all the leaves. Clean each leave on the next day using a clean sponge and water. Drain the water and set the leaves aside.
3. Soak dried mushrooms overnight and cut into thick slices.
4. Soak glutinous rice for about 3 hours. Rinse and mix in salt.
5. Cook fresh chestnuts in boiling water for 8mins and remove the shells.
6. Soak dried shrimps for 15mins, rinse and pat dry with towel paper.
7. Chop garlic and shallots.
8. Cut salted egg yolks into half.
9. Heat oil in a frying pan, fry garlic and shallots until fragrant.
10. Add in pork belly and the marinade. Briefly stir fry until the pork is half cooked.
11. Remove the pork from the frying pan.
12. Pour the remaining stir-fried garlic and shallots as well as the sauce onto the glutinous rice. Mix well.
13. In the same frying pan, fry the dried shrimps until they're lightly brown and fragrant. Remove from the frying pan and set aside.
14. Repeat step #13 with the mushrooms.
Wrapping the rice dumplings:
1. Stack 2 bamboo leaves with the smooth side facing up and form a cone shape.
2. Add 1 tablespoon of glutinous rice, followed by 1 piece of pork belly, a slice of mushroom, a chestnut, 1 teaspoon of dried shrimps and 1 halved egg yolk. Cover it with another tablespoon of glutinous rice or more so that the cone is almost filled.
3. Now, fold down the leaf to cover the brim of the cone and hold it into a triangular shape. You'd need to hold it tight.
4. Fold the remaining leaves around the pouch by following the triangular shape.
5. Tie the dumpling tightly with a string. It's important that the dumplings are nicely packed and tied to avoid any leakage when cooking them later.
6. Repeat step #1 to #5 until all the ingredients are used up.
Cooking the rice dumplings:
1. Fill a large pot with 1/2 - 2/3 of water and add in some salt. Bring the water to boil.
2. Gently place the rice dumplings into the boiling water. Make sure all the dumplings are submerged in the water. (Use more than a pot or cook the dumplings in batches if your pot is not big enough to cook all the dumplings.)
3. Boil the rice dumplings with the lid covered for about 2-3 hours. As water evaporates while boiling, add some boiling water into the pot whenever the water level goes down.
4. Remove a rice dumpling from the pot after 2.5 hours to check if it's been cooked to the right texture.
5. Remove all the rice dumplings from the pot once they're cooked and place them in a colander/big strainer if not hanging them somewhere to drain the water.
6. Serve when it's slightly cooled. I find that rice dumplings taste better after it's cooled. Somehow, it tastes even better on the next day onwards.
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