Sticky Rice Dumpling (Cantonese Zongzi with mung bean) 綠豆鹹肉糉

What’s your favorite festive food from where you are from? Sticky rice dumpling (Zongzi) is one of mine! It is usually eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival story is about a patriotic poet, Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the river. Since the people don’t want the fish in the river to eat their beloved hero’s body, they decided to throw some rice dumplings into the river for the fish to eat. Now after years of passing from generation to generation, we are now eating rice dumplings every year during Dragon Boat Festival.

There are many variations of rice dumplings, but this is my favorite one. It is with sticky rice, green beans, pork belly, and salted egg yolk. Now that it’s not so easy for me to find salted egg yolk here in Germany, I stop putting the yolk and put Chinese mushrooms and dried scallops instead. One tip if you plan to put mushroom, you will need to finish it soon, because it can turn bad very soon (especially if you live in a warm place). I personally like to make a couple of rice dumplings in advance, then put them in the freezer after it’s cool down. So I can just eat them whenever I have time. There are a lot of flavors if you like too, some with red beans, some mixed with other rice. Some are triangles in shapes, some are just wrapped in a rectangular shape.

I learned how to make rice dumplings from my grandma. In the past, my grandma made her own rice dumplings every year. When I was a teenager, I went there to help her make them while learning how to do them at the same time. I really like the rice dumplings that my grandma makes, and I’m happy that I learned them from her. So the recipe can pass on in the future.

Sticky Rice Dumplings with green beans

Traditional festive food for Dragon Boat Festival

Servings 6 small rice dumplings

Ingredients

• 24 Bamboo/Rice Dumplings leaves If your leaves are with good quality, 12 leaves will be enough. Better to have extra in case the leaves break.
• 250 g Sticky rice
• 150 g Dried mung beans Without shells
• 6 cubes Pork belly
• 3 Dried shitake mushrooms
• 3 Dried Scallops
• 6 Salted Duck Egg Yolk If you have it, please add it! I can't find it here so I skipped.

Marinate for Pork Belly

• 1/4 tsp Five-spice powder
• Pinch of Salt
• 1/4 tsp Soy sauce
• Pinch of Sugar
• Pinch of White pepper
• Dash of Rice wine

Instructions

Preparation the night before

• Put the bamboo leaves in a big pot and covered with water. Put it to boil. With the lid on, leave the leaves to soak overnight.
  
• Soak the dried mung beans, shitake mushroom, and scallops separately. Put them in the fridge to soak overnight.
  
• Marinate the pork belly and leave it in the fridge.
• If you prefer, you can also soak the sticky rice the night before. Otherwise, soak it 1 hour before using it.
  

Wrap the rice dumplings

• For the bamboo leaves, drained the water. And use a clean cloth/sponge to wipe it.
• Drain the water from the mushrooms. Cut in small cubes.
• Drain the water from the scallops. And shred them apart.
• Drain the water from the rice. Add a pinch of salt to season.
• Take 2 bamboo leaves. Put the shiny side of the leaves facing you, and have them overlap with one another. (see image)
  
• Use the edge of the 2 leaves and create a corner by putting the bottom leaves on top. Hold it tightly with your left hand. Make sure the corner you created is closed (if not things will drop from there).
  
• Add a handful of sticky rice.
  
• Then add a handful of mung beans.
  
• Add some mushrooms.
  
• Then add the scallops.
  
• Also the pork belly. If you are putting salted egg yolk, add it too.
  
• Add another layer of mung beans.
  
• Lastly, add some more rice.
  
• Now we are ready to close it. To make it easier to close, I add 1 extra leave just on top of the rice. (You can skip it if your dumpling is small and you are confident that you can close it without this extra one.)
  
• Put the 2 sides of the leaves towards the center.
  
• Then fold one end to the center.
  
• And the other side as well.
  
• Use a thread to tight it. Make sure you wrap it tight enough. If not, it may not be as good when you are boiling it. One tip I have from my grandma is to use the teeth to bite 1 end of the thread to hold it tight, so you have a free hand to wrap the rest of the thread around.
  
• Make sure you make a tight knot at the end.
• Then a rice dumpling is wrapped. Repeat for the rest.
• Put all the dumplings in water to boil. Cook for 1 hour if your dumplings are as small as mine. You may need to cook longer if your dumplings are bigger.
• Once it's boiled, it's ready to eat. I like to dip it with white sugar, but some people also like to dip with soya sauce. Enjoy the delicious rice dumplings!

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Chinese