Lately I’ve been obsessed with making Chinese sticky rice dumplings known as Zongzi. Who knows why I get this sudden urge so late in life. It’s not an easy task. It involves many steps, many ingredient and a few days. Perhaps that’s the catch. I never like the easy stuff. Needless to say, I haven’t quite mastered the art of making Zongzi.
It is an art, a loving proces though at the end, I could be gnashing my teeth and snarling a mean snarl. The preparating of soaking the bamboo leaves in cold water overnight is relatively easy except for fitting all the leaves into a big enough pot. The next day I boil the leaves for 15 minutes. After it’s cool then rinsing and wiping down the leaves on both sides. Now comes the tricky part of making a pocket out of 2 leaves, filling the pocket and wrapping it all up into a triangle and tying neatly with a string. Sounds easy enough but it’s not.
The wrap is my failure. I get the pocket. I add a 3rd leave. Then comes the close up. 9 times out of 10, a leaf cracks along the vein and rice falls out. By the 7th zongzi, my hair is standing on end and I am swearing. I am lucky if I get one or two nice looking zongzi. Sometimes I have to use 4 leaves to make one. I refuse to go beyond 4. The last time I gave up with 3 more zongzi to make. So I have the leftover fillings still in the fridge.
After all the trial and tribulation I have learned a few more things. Never prepare too many leaves ahead. After storing in the freezer, they are weaker. Maybe that was why I was having so much trouble with the splitting. I thought I would save myself more work by preparing all the leaves (180) ahead of time and freezing them till I need them. So I’ve prepared 11 leaves to finish making the 3 I gave up on. This time I added a little olive oil to the boiling water to make the leaves more pliable.
Wish me luck. I’m off for my morning walk while the leaves cool off enough to handle.
