Happy Dragon Boat Festival & Zongzi
Happy Dragon Boat Festival!
Happy Duanwu Jie (端午節), aka Dragon Boat Festival! Duanwu is a holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, hence its Chinese name meaning “double five.”
My favorite part of the festival is of course the zongzi (粽子), or the sticky rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves. Eating zongzi is symbolic of Qu Yuan, a poet who was drowned in 277 B.C. The villagers tried to save him in their dragon boats, then threw cooked rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the water so the fish would eat that instead. This old tale became the sticky and delicious tradition of zongzi in Chinese communities around the world.
You can get zongzi with a variety of fillings – red bean, peanuts, hong shou rou, mung beans, dried scallops, salty duck egg yolk.. the list goes on and on! My mother makes the BEST zongzi, hands down. Hers are long and plump, filled with a fatty slice of pork belly marinated in chinese five spice, a dried scallop, and a salty duck egg yolk. The zongzi are steamed until the rice is soft and sticky, and the fat of the pork has melted into every grain, mingling with the subtle flavors imparted by the bamboo leaf… rendering the entire thing fragrant and delicious!!! Just a little bit of soy sauce on the side and welcome to duanwu heaven. Wrapping these zongzi with my mother has become one of my favorite activity of mine – I look forward to it every time I go home.
Making zongzi is simple, but takes some time and is pretty much only worth it if you’re going to make a ton.Foodmayhem.com has a great recipe and how-to for the DIYers.
For those who are a little less hands-on, check out where I got my zongzi this year.
Enjoy!
Zongzi
You know Dragon Boat Festival is just around the corner when you start seeing zongzi. The little bamboo-wrapped packets of deliciousness have been popping up everywhere, giving me a huge craving for the sticky rice dumplings. Luckily for me, there was a nice little lady selling them on Changle Lu & Xiangyang Lu when I passed by this weekend.
Photos by Adrian Lai
She was wrapping them on the street and drawing a small crowd. We stood around for awhile and watched her hands move deftly as she expertly transformed a single bamboo leaf, a chunk of fatty pork, and some rice into a fantastic treat. I thought she was using brown rice, but it was actually raw sticky rice mixed with soy sauce.
Cooked zongzi ready to go, sold for $4RMB a piece.
We bought some to go and enjoyed them at home on our balcony. Happy Dragon Boat, hope you got the day off!
Zongzi Lady
Corner of Changle Lu at Xiangyang Lu
Comments