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Chinese tamales - Duan Wu Festival aka Dragon Boat Festival

Chinese tamales - Duan Wu Festival aka Dragon Boat Festival
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  • Chinese tamales - Duan Wu Festival aka Dragon Boat Festival

    Post #1 - June 10th, 2005, 7:47 am
    Post #1 - June 10th, 2005, 7:47 am Post #1 - June 10th, 2005, 7:47 am
    This Saturday is the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival( (Duan Wu Festival).

    The story behind this day? Back in the day, a patriotic poet (Chu Yuan) drowned in a river. In order to prevent the fishes from eating his body, villagers wrapped rice in silk and threw them into the river. Over the years, the silk has been replaced by bamboo leaves, and now we eat these rice dumplings every year (fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar). There are many versions of this legend, but that basics are the same (guy drowning, villagers throwing in food to save him, etc).

    Anyways... You will find these dumplings in Chinatown (including Argyle) now. There are usually 2 kinds: Savory (pork belly, mushroom, salted egg yolks, mung beans, etc) and Sweet (red bean paste or jujube, etc).

    I will be attempting to make these tamales this year (yikes!), but I am not confident enough to offer them to my friends... =) Plus it takes 2 days and hours and hours of boiling. But if you do see these in the store (check the Chinese bakeries), do give them a try...
  • Post #2 - June 10th, 2005, 8:52 am
    Post #2 - June 10th, 2005, 8:52 am Post #2 - June 10th, 2005, 8:52 am
    CrazyC!

    That's a super tip! It's this kind of information which makes reading this board worthwhile. Easily I could have overlooked this dumpling and unaware of the significance possibly passed on it. Now it is in my things to do this weekend!

    Thanks!

    Regards,
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #3 - June 10th, 2005, 9:10 am
    Post #3 - June 10th, 2005, 9:10 am Post #3 - June 10th, 2005, 9:10 am
    I've eaten these my entire life and never knew the symbolism behind them.

    You're brave the attempt making these, if you have a recipe, please share. It's no easy task. My Grandmother passed away over a year ago, and our family recipe is lost.
    Hammer
  • Post #4 - June 13th, 2005, 8:42 am
    Post #4 - June 13th, 2005, 8:42 am Post #4 - June 13th, 2005, 8:42 am
    OK... No laughing... For my first attempt I think I did ok...

    Friday night

    I began prepping... I sliced up and marinated the pork belly, soaked the bamboo leaves, soaked the dried mushrooms and shrimp, and soaked the sticky rice. Yep... a lot of soaking going on...

    Image
    Bamboo Leaves soaking

    Image
    Mushrooms and Shrimps soaked

    Saturday morning at 7:30 am

    I started a large pot of boiling water with vinegar, and started boiling the soaked bamboo leaves for 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, I started cooking the marinated pork belly slices...

    Image
    Hmmm... Pork...

    Sliced the salted duck egg yolks...

    Image
    Hmmm.... Duck Eggs...

    Seasoned the soaked rice...

    Image
    Hmmm... Rice.....

    Opened a package of cooked chestnuts (yeah... cheated a little)

    Image

    Then, I started wrapping. Now the package is supposed to be triangular in shape... As you can see mine was not really triangular... It is more rectangular. But this is hard!!

    Image
    My first joong (that's what this is called)...

    After wrapping, we boil these suckers for about 2 hours, drain them and let cool for a while. You can freeze them for months, or refrigerate for a week. The finished product:

    Image

    I have a pic of the inside, but it is fuzzy in my haste to eat them. For my first try, it was ok. But I will probably try this again in cooler weather... =)

    I used the recipe below (I altered it a little) and the wrapping instructions are here.

    [Ingredients]
    40 - 60 pieces dried bamboo leaves
    20 - 30 strings for tying

    For Rice:
    1 kg glutinous rice
    4 - 5 tablespoons peanut oil
    2 -3 cloves garlic
    1 tablespoon light soy sauce
    1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons (mushroom flavoured) dark soy sauce
    2 teaspoons sugar
    2 teaspoons salt
    1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
    1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

    For Pork Filling:
    600g belly pork
    4 tablespoons peanut oil
    Seasoning for pork:
    2 -3 cloves garlic
    1 tablespoon light soy sauce
    1 tablespoon (mushroom flavoured) dark soy sauce
    2 teaspoons sugar
    1 teaspoon salt
    1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
    1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

    For Other Filling:
    50g (or more) dried shrimps
    6 (or more) dried Chinese mushrooms
    chestnuts

    [Preparation]
    First Night:
    1. Slice belly pork (into about 40 - 60 bite-size slices) and marinate with seasoning. Cover and put into the refrigerator overnight.

    2. Soak dried shrimps and mushrooms in enough water to cover overnight.

    3. Wash glutinous rice then add any remaining soaking liquid from soaking shrimps and mushrooms. Top up with sufficient water to cover and soak overnight.

    4. Separate bamboo leaves and soak in enough water to cover overnight. Use something heavy (a mortar bowl for example) to press down if necessary.


    Second Day:
    1. For the pork: Peel and mince garlic. Peel and slice shallots. Heat 4 tablespoons peanut oil in a wok, sauté minced garlic until light golden brown in colour. Add drained belly pork (reserve marinade) and stir-fry for a few minutes until colour changes. Add marinade, cover the wok with lid and let steam for a couple of minutes until the pork is cooked. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary. Remove to a container and let cool. Cover and put into the refrigerator until ready to be used.

    2. Drain glutinous rice. Mince garlic. Heat peanut oil and sauté minced garlic briefly. Add rice and seasoning, taste and adjust if necessary – seasoning should be a bit saltier than normal because boiling the dumplings later will dilute the saltiness. Stir-fry over moderate heat for about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

    3. Wash soaked bamboo leaves (wear kitchen glove to prevent cutting yourself, I use a soft brush to scrub each leaf clean) and drip dry in a large colander. Trim off stiff stalk ends. Boil for 5-10 minutes in a big pot with water and ½ cup of vinegar. Drain.

    4. Start boiling water in a large pot for cooking rice dumplings.

    5. For each dumpling, shape 2 bamboo leaves like a cone, put in some rice, pressing some along the sides. Add 2 - 3 slices pork, 2 - 3 slices mushrooms, some shrimps and 1 - 2 chestnut(s) in the centre. Cover with more rice. Wrap up into a four-point triangle and bind securely with string.

    6. Boil for 2 hours, then drain.
  • Post #5 - June 13th, 2005, 8:53 am
    Post #5 - June 13th, 2005, 8:53 am Post #5 - June 13th, 2005, 8:53 am
    I almost forgot... I had leftover ingredients, so I mixed them all in the rice cooker, and voila!

    Image

    I think I have reached my cooking quota for the month... phew...
  • Post #6 - June 14th, 2005, 11:13 am
    Post #6 - June 14th, 2005, 11:13 am Post #6 - June 14th, 2005, 11:13 am
    CrazyC,
    Looks fantastically tasty.
    Like others, I was inspired by your initial post and got some at Captain Bakery and Cafe on Saturday (link. It was tasty. But pales before what I imagine the ones you made must have been.
    I don't think they freeze well :wink: :twisted: (hint, hint) :)

    Thanks for the recipe and the link showing the wrapping (not very well described in the book I picked up recently), I'll have to try it sometime. I'm assuming bamboo leaves are available in chinatown/argyle (are ti leaves also available?). How did you prepare the egg yolks? [/url]
  • Post #7 - June 14th, 2005, 12:20 pm
    Post #7 - June 14th, 2005, 12:20 pm Post #7 - June 14th, 2005, 12:20 pm
    I am happy to hear that you tried it. The bakeries in Chinatown do carry them regularly, but sometimes they make them "extra special" for the festival.

    I would offer my joongs if they were really good, but I need to work on them somemore. Maybe when the weather gets cooler... But you will be on my list... :wink:

    The bamboo leaves come dried in packages of 60. They were cheap (less than $2 a pack), so I bought more than I needed. The problem with wrapping these dumplings is that you have to use leaves that have not been torn. A tiny little hole would cause the dumplings to break and you will end up with rice water.

    The eggs are salted duck eggs. They come in packs of 6, and sometimes you will find them cooked. I used the raw ones, since they are less salty and discarded the whites... The raw yolks are really sticky, and the whites are really slimy... Not very pretty at all...

    The interesting thing is that I actually added plain water to the leftover rice to cook (nothing else was added seasoningwise), but the color as you can see is actually darker than the joong. When you are seasoning the rice for the joong, you have to make sure that the rice is saltier than expected. The boiling process reduces the saltiness by a bit. So this batch was actually not as seasoned as I expected.

    Hmmm... given the cooler weather over the next few days, and the fact that the cleaners will be coming on Thursday, I might try again tomorrow... :lol:
  • Post #8 - June 14th, 2005, 10:34 pm
    Post #8 - June 14th, 2005, 10:34 pm Post #8 - June 14th, 2005, 10:34 pm
    Hi,

    This was a wonderfully instructive thread from the story behind the rice cakes to the actual making of the rice cakes. I thought it was a good use of your odds and ends to throw them into the rice cooker.

    You also inspired me to head to Chinatown early Saturday, which I will repeat again. It really has a different feel early in the morning before the non-Asians arrive and the population on the streets shifts to mostly Caucasian.

    Thanks again!

    Regards,
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #9 - June 27th, 2005, 11:26 am
    Post #9 - June 27th, 2005, 11:26 am Post #9 - June 27th, 2005, 11:26 am
    CrazyC:

    Thank you so much for posting about joong, the “Chinese tamales”. Someone brought the sweet variety with red bean paste to a party I attended yesterday and it was great to be able to ask in a casual, offhand way, “Oh, are those for the dragon boat festival?” :) And they were delicious!

    I asked the woman who brought them where they were from, and she just said, Oh, any store in Chinatown has them. I tried to persevere in my interrogation: “Are they on sale just this time of year?” She replied that they used to be available only for the day of the festival, but now you can find them year round, in the freezer of Chinatown stores. (In Cathy2’s post, she also reports seeing them year-round.) My friend advised me to just boil the frozen ones for 10 minutes.

    By the way, in a different thread sazerac wrote:

    … the Joan or Zhong (from what I googled; still not sure how to prononce it) …


    I don’t speak any of the languages of China but to my ear my Mandarin-speaking friend’s pronunciation sounded like [dzong], with the vowel long and with falling tone. (Of course, the best way to ask for these “tamales” might be to print out the picture in sazerac’s post and take it along to the store. :) )

    Thanks again, C.

    Amata
  • Post #10 - September 27th, 2005, 2:20 pm
    Post #10 - September 27th, 2005, 2:20 pm Post #10 - September 27th, 2005, 2:20 pm
    delayed response... was randomly searching... almost take offense in calling this a 'tamale' as i find the chinese version 10x as complex a tamale but ...

    pronunciation for meat/savory filled:
    mandarin: ròu zhòng
    taiwanese: bmà tzăng
    cantonese: you're on your own

    the 3D tetrahedral? shape of the zhong zi (generic name for either sweet of savory) is important as overly flattened/ overly portly versions are considered improper. happy chef (and other dim sum houses) offer similar ly stuffed rice in bamboo leaves. essentially you're getting the same thing as you would in the zhong zi, but so far, i've sampled nothing i'd bother to recommend.

    good bma tzang should be just greasy enough, filled with properly fatty pork, boiled peanuts!!, shittake mushrooms, dried shrimp, chestnut & a decent sized duck egg. easier said than done man.. it's so EASY to make a lousy tasting one.. kudos to the attempt.
  • Post #11 - July 15th, 2016, 7:45 am
    Post #11 - July 15th, 2016, 7:45 am Post #11 - July 15th, 2016, 7:45 am
    My recently homemade joong. I like to make my own (chicken) eggs. It does not look like CrazyC has posted on this forum recently, but if anyone else wants to host a "wrap" party at a convenient location, I am game to be a tutor!
    IMG_20160703_234345.jpg Homemade joong/zhongzi
  • Post #12 - July 15th, 2016, 8:06 am
    Post #12 - July 15th, 2016, 8:06 am Post #12 - July 15th, 2016, 8:06 am
    HI,

    While I am quite interested to learn how to wrap these. You may want to consider making a youtube video showing this technique.

    I hate to admit, when it comes to cooking or fixing something, I will check youtube to see if anything exists.

    Regards,
    Cathy2
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #13 - July 15th, 2016, 9:34 am
    Post #13 - July 15th, 2016, 9:34 am Post #13 - July 15th, 2016, 9:34 am
    I did consult the internet a few years ago for a refresher on the wrapping technique. I still am not spectacular at wrapping, thus the abundant use of string and wider bamboo leaves. I have seen several different shapes from different Asian cultures, but this is the one I grew up with.
  • Post #14 - July 15th, 2016, 10:00 am
    Post #14 - July 15th, 2016, 10:00 am Post #14 - July 15th, 2016, 10:00 am
    My technique for these is simple.
    1. Call Grandma.
    2. Receive Zhongzi.
    3. Eat.
  • Post #15 - July 15th, 2016, 11:39 am
    Post #15 - July 15th, 2016, 11:39 am Post #15 - July 15th, 2016, 11:39 am
    Ha, unfortunately I no longer have the option for #1!
  • Post #16 - July 15th, 2016, 1:00 pm
    Post #16 - July 15th, 2016, 1:00 pm Post #16 - July 15th, 2016, 1:00 pm
    excelsior wrote:Ha, unfortunately I no longer have the option for #1!

    Sorry to hear - but your zhongzi look terrific!
  • Post #17 - November 19th, 2017, 6:11 pm
    Post #17 - November 19th, 2017, 6:11 pm Post #17 - November 19th, 2017, 6:11 pm
    Family joong wrapping social!

    IMG_20171119_174235.png Ingredients


    IMG_20171119_142211.jpg A pyramid of joong


    IMG_20171119_164828.jpg Two hours of cooking
  • Post #18 - November 19th, 2017, 10:00 pm
    Post #18 - November 19th, 2017, 10:00 pm Post #18 - November 19th, 2017, 10:00 pm
    excelsior wrote:My recently homemade joong. I like to make my own (chicken) eggs. It does not look like CrazyC has posted on this forum recently, but if anyone else wants to host a "wrap" party at a convenient location, I am game to be a tutor!

    Is your offer still good? :D

    Regards,
    Cathy2
    Cathy2

    "You'll be remembered long after you're dead if you make good gravy, mashed potatoes and biscuits." -- Nathalie Dupree
    Facebook, Twitter, Greater Midwest Foodways,
  • Post #19 - November 21st, 2017, 12:39 pm
    Post #19 - November 21st, 2017, 12:39 pm Post #19 - November 21st, 2017, 12:39 pm
    Cathy2, I'm still game!
  • Post #20 - November 23rd, 2017, 8:43 am
    Post #20 - November 23rd, 2017, 8:43 am Post #20 - November 23rd, 2017, 8:43 am
    excelsior, someone in your family *really* knows what they're doing: I see a couple of perfect pyramids amongs those joongs!

    My grad students at Wuhan U. made sure that they gave me lessons in all sorts of techniques, once they discovered my love of cooking. I can do pretty good jiaozi and shumai, but joongs and hand-pulled noodles totally defeated me. Congrats to everyone who tries them!

    Geo
    Sooo, you like wine and are looking for something good to read? Maybe *this* will do the trick! :)
  • Post #21 - November 30th, 2017, 9:47 am
    Post #21 - November 30th, 2017, 9:47 am Post #21 - November 30th, 2017, 9:47 am
    We use lots of string :-) They taste the same no matter what shape!
  • Post #22 - December 2nd, 2017, 8:55 pm
    Post #22 - December 2nd, 2017, 8:55 pm Post #22 - December 2nd, 2017, 8:55 pm
    Think you might enjoy looking at the papercraft joong I made for the participants of my joong social.

    IMG_20171202_193028.jpg Commemorative Joong Social Keepsake: 2017 Edition

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