Dumpling Festival

Delicious savoury or sweet dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves mark the celebration of the Dumpling Festival. Celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year, the Dumpling Festival, is signalled by the grand dragon boat race especially in Penang Island, lately at PutraJaya too as there's a large enough man made lake I think. The festivity falls today.

The Dumpling (Chang) Festival commemorates Qu Yuan, one of China’s greatest poets and patriots, who protested against a corrupt government. Wrongfully dismissed, he protested against the injustice and drowned himself in a river. They sought to recover his body from the river he jumped in. So the people then threw dumplings made of rice into the water to lure the fish away from feasting on the body/ his remains and boats raced throughout the expanse of the river to find him. His body was never found, but through ages, it  has evolved to become two rather distinctive festivals, namely the Dragon Boat Festival where teams of rowers led by a drummer race a dragon-headed boat to reach the finish line and the Dumpling Festival.

Ketupat Palas is a Malay word, made of Glutinous rice with or without fillings and wrapped in a woven  fan palm leaves (Licuala). The green ones are lye water Glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves,  the least favorite to most youngters nowadays.

Mom brought home the famous Ketupat Palas with meat floss and 'Kee Chang'

 from her trip to Hatyai, Southern Thailand last week.

This dumpling may appear boring and taste bland until and you get the right dipping's.

You'll fall in love with it! It can be anything sweet,  with Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), or Kaya (Coconut Jam), or some really good Honey, or just simply sprinkle fine grains of white sugar. It's the versatile dumpling, One dumpling, but many ways of enjoying it

The more savoury and sort after are the "Kiam Chang" the flavoured dumpling. Flavoured because it comes in a variety of fillings, from minced meat with salted egg yolk or braised pork or braised chicken with slices of mushroom even nuts or simply red bean fillings. Like last year I made the Nyonya Chang version as it's not easily available. It also because I felt there's something I did not do well that I wanted to improve.

So here's my second attempt,  Chang out of the boiler hanging out to dry

 I dare say that I wrapped better this time, only had one loosen Chang unlike the first time I had six during the boiling stage

I was more generous with the Bunga Telang aka Blue Clitoria (pea)  flower and that resulted in a darker hue of blue on my glutinous rice which was very nice. I change the way of prepping the ingredients to suit my time since it was a weekday and somehow I think it work fine for me. I forgot the pandan leaves thou which is supposed to give it an added aroma.

Recipe - Nyonya ChangSource : Kuali.com (Amy Beh)

Yields approximately 12 dumplings (I got 16 dumplings)my Chang size must be smaller

Ingredients

• 700g glutinous rice (I had  500g)
• Some screwpine leaves, cut into 4 cm lengths  ( I missed this)
• Dried bamboo leaves, washed and boiled until soften 
• Hemp strings for tying
• 2 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar

Filling

• 5 shallots, minced
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• ½ cup oil  (used less)
• 3 tsp preserved soya bean paste (tau cheong) (I omitted this)
• 7 tbsp coriander powder (ground ketumbar), mixed with 170ml water into a paste (reduce to 5 tbsp.)
• 450g belly pork, skin removed and cut into very small cubes
• 12-14 dried mushrooms, soaked and diced
• 100g candied winter melon, diced*

(*I had left over meat that I later use to stir fried with Kai Lan for dinner)

Seasoning (combined)

• 3 tsp pepper
• 5½-6 tbsp sugar or to taste
• 1 tbsp thick soy sauce (2 tbsp.)
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce (2 tbsp)
• 2½-3 tsp salt or to taste (2 tsp)
• ½ tsp ground black pepper ( I added slightly more)

Method

To prepare rice (I apportioned the rice to tinged some blue with the blue pea flower)

1. Boil some water together with 30 blue pea flowers to get blue tinged water.
2. Soak 200g of the rice with this water for at least 3 hours.
3. Soak the rest of the rice with water at the same time.

To prepare the filling

1. Heat oil in a non-stick pan, fry shallots and garlic until aromatic. coriander paste. Fry until fragrant.
2. Add pork, winter melon and mushrooms, and mix in combined seasoning. Fry until pork is heated through. Dish out and set aside.

To assemble the dumplings

1. Drain the glutinous rice and briefly rinse the rice.
2. Overlap 2 bamboo leaves lengthways then fold into a cone. 
3. Fill in this order into the cone-2 tbsp blue glutinous rice, 2 tbsp filling, 2-3 tbsp white glutinous rice.
4. Cover with a piece of screwpine leaf. Press down to compress the dumpling. Wrap into a pyramid shape. Tie tightly with hemp string to secure. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up.
5. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt and sugar then put in the dumplings and immerse them completely. Cook in rapidly boiling water for 2-2½ hours. Remove the dumplings and hang them to drain off excess water. 

Happy Dumpling Festival !

Tick ! Tock ! Tick ! Tock ! May is coming to an end

How time flies. I have been procrastinating on this post as well.
It'll soon be June and two birthdays from this little group of mine where we are having the No Deadline Birthday Exchange in 2015 has just gone by, with June it will be three and I haven't got anything on my drawing board nor planned yet. Well, there were lots of ideas in my head, I pretty much want to make everything I see on Pinterest, well, looking and looking can take hours and not able to make up my mind is another. So here I am pondering still.

On another note, I've just finished stitching for a Mail Art Exchange hosted by Mii Stitch. It's been a long while since I was in an MA exchange.   I won't be able to share the photos of my MA as yet for now but this I can show you. Buttons I made using a little button making gadget from Daiso. It was pretty easy to make.

My Mother's Day stashing at Spotlight,  my first visit  like  35 minutes, and any crafters would know 35 minutes is NOT enough time to explore a craft store but I thought I could just make  a quick stop over on my way to fetch Diane 20 minutes away since I already knew what I wanted but apparently there's a lot more that I want but couldn't lay my hands on with so little time. So next visit, no rush.

Me and Mom had an early Mother's Day girls shopping spree  with both of us ended buying shoes, we went to Sephora, H & M, Parkson, Isetan and  thereafter we  stop to rest with her having  a bowl of Curry noodles instead of  Nasi Lemak which she wanted earlier but changed her mind.

She's  82

My bowl of Asam Laksa noodle (A spicy sweet sour from tamarind broth)

 A late  Tim Sum at Genting Resort with DH. There's not much to show of this hilly casino resort at the moment since it is currently undergoing a massive re-development for the  first Twentieth Fox Century Theme park due to complete in 2016 . No we don't gamble, just sometimes we like to put a night or two here for it's cool air plus I love to shop here.

Red Hexa SAL related.

I finally got these fabrics out intended for washing but it rained heavily on the day I wanted to get it wash. So will have to put it away until another day

 

So instead I went on to make these Form Dress Mannequin, a design template from DIY Dish.

Here's the link thediydish. I have made these before but given away. These are for me, oh wait!! Diane had claimed one for herself.

.Stitching a Witchy Boots on a remnant piece of fabric to get my mind off  some pending issues on the homefront that has been on my mind for some weeks. I was also feeling unwell and apparently I had what the Doctor term is as Acid Reflux Symptom.  I was too tired to think any more and thought I could stitch a simple pair of witch boots on my own intuition and instinctive feeling, no chart, resulting I had to undo one boot when both  doesn't look like a match.

 After all the froggy~ies gone and new stitches put in

Confession, your eyes not playing any tricks on you.  

One leg is off by one count, not gonna undo that. I'll just leave it as that, no execuses

Will reveal my finishing in the next posting.

Till then, have a good week ahead, thank you so much for coming by, I appreciate and thank you all  for your lovely comments.

June Birthday Block Exchange

The 3rd Birthday Block Exchange falls in June for June. These are my fabric selection for June who has actually indicated her choice of colors from the Jolie Maison  Belue range

Her block : Rail Fence. Quantity 12 pieces 

Block Size 8.5" . Instructions are  join 3 strips and leave the 4th strip unsew with the  4th strips fabrics from each color block variations. My fabrics from Robert Kaufman and an original Jolie Maison Belue range.

Sounds pretty easy, all I need now is to cut accurately and sew straight right ?  LOL

But I am glad that June finally put up her Rail Fence diagram and being me, I am  following June's 'example' with colors combination to the T.

These are my June's Blocks

My first finished for the year. Took me 10 days to complete and I almost gave up halfway. 

I am not sure if this will inspire me back to stitching. For all I know, I just needed a gift to go with my package and with that thought in mind I just hang on to it with gritted teeth.

Design by Le Chalet des Perelles

Petitie roses de juin

Fabric 32ct tea dyed linen

Finished into a pinkeep Approximate  size 11cm x 8cm

The  package mailed  and arrived on June 10, 2014

We celebrated the Dumpling festival in the first week of June, I attempted my first dumpling making with a Nyonya glutinous rice dumpling. It took me two days to prep the ingredients starting with soaking the rice as well as the bamboo leaves overnight  

Boiled  Blue Pea Flower (Bunga Telang), a must for a Nyonya dumplings

 Prepping the dumpling ingredients

 Two and a half hours later. 

Regrettably, I only obtained a tint of blue hues which is almost invisible on my rice , obviously the quantity of my 'blue pea flowers' is not enough, yet I am happy I managed quite successfully with the dumplings.

We'll see how I will  fair next year, if I am up to it again, LOL

On Mother's day. Celebrated 3 mothers in the family.

Some books I picked up from Kino recently during my meetup with MW and Jackie 

Had a meetup with MW and Jackie that ended with a Nonya lunch (totally Asian) at Little Penang Café.

Very 'pai seh' MW picked up the tab again. Thanks MW and Jackie, you girls (BJ & June included) must make a trip for some 'Loh Mee' treat from me next.

It was great meeting up with both of you .

The next  BBE is in about two months time. The next block will need some studying on my part, hopefully I can manage it, LOL. Until my next post, thank you all who continue to come by and took time to leave me  your comments. Appreciate it a lot !

" Chang" the festival

The 'Chang' ( Chinese dumpling)  festival is back!!!  its celebrated every year on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month in the Chinese calendar, which is today. Its one of my favourite festival, I am simply mad over these glutinous rice dumplings, LOL but lately anything with glutinous rice seems to have taken a toll on these old bones of mine. Well,I shall indulge first and suffer the pain later. That's my motto for today! hahaha.

I have yet to attempt these scrumptious leaf wrapping triangle 'Chang' on my own, yet..means one day I shall attempt, one day....wrapping the chang is most intimidating and tedious, so it seems to me but then again these days you can buy them at every street corner if one do not know how or can't wrap a chang properly, but if you are like me, I am lucky..I used to have grandma, then when I got married , my MIL, I know DIL are suppose to know how to, but hey! time changes DIL are no longer stay at home doing the house chores anymore, we bring home pay checks too, LOL. Anyway, MIL used to make all kinds of stuffing to accommodate all her family members taste buds.  Not all chang is full of glutinous rice containing meat, salted duck yolk, mushrooms, chestnut, oyster and dried shrimp. There are also those filled with just beans ingredients, or nutty and the  'kee chang' lye water which has nothing at all, but taste heavenly when eaten (dip, sandwich, buttered) with kaya or gula melaka syrup. Then again, we do have some weired tastes people in the family who want a 'kosong Kiam Chang' meaning the glutinous rice without any condiments in it yet flavoured to taste like the meaty dumplings.

I know,  IT IS yummy and my tummy is growling..LOL
Thank you for taking a peek, hope your Monday is good.

Happenings in May

Stitching wise, not much of a progress made since my last posting on the Rose Sampler and the Lighthouse. I was drawn to stitch some smalls instead, some peeks here .

My Sweet Tooth mail art finally flew on the 23rd after a long wait. I finished it sometime in March but hold on to it till now since the mailing date is June 10 and it takes about 2 weeks to travel. I found a cute little cake pin at Living Cabin. Completed my Rose theme mail art although the mailing is end of July.

Made more flower pins , a FLOWER PIN TUTORIAL to make one to look like this

You will need these to make the pins.

1) Strong glue, I used Super Glue which I wrapped with a piece of tissue to protect the glue away from my fingers

2) Beads - Good size, not too large in MHO, and not too tiny, for the 'show' piece. You will need to judge the size yourself and the tiny seed beads as stopper so that it looked well balanced, to me that is

3) the pin size, longer ones will give you more space for more beads, which are hard to find from where I am at the moment coz' I've never found one yet at my local haberdashery but the colored ones on a pinwheel will do anyhow.

Place enough glue on the pin head, seen here I had put in the flower before the glue for easy handling. Thereafter add the tiny seed bead, add glue  to hold its position, you may add more beads before ending here, if you wishLet it dry, room temperature and its done ! really simple and easy, make sure the glue is strong enough to hold the pins . Happy trying  !

"Jung Cheet" (Dumpling Festival), a delicious savoury or sweet glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves mark the celebration of the "jung cheet" festival. Celebrated on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month every year, the dumpling festival is heralded by grand dragon boat races in Penang. The festival this year falls on May 28.

MIL makes deliciously beautifully wrapped dumplings enough for everyone, grandma too when she was around, I shamefully admit, never tried, not even once, maybe next year I should I will.

Next mail art theme Initials. Patterns found, still undecided which or what or how.
Jeannette, sorry for my long overdue reply, here's the details on Pandan leaves which are widely used in Asian cooking for its aroma or natural green (coloring) in food, desserts and cakes. In Western countries, it might be available dried or check out Asian grocery?Healthwise, it has not been good lately. Jackie, thank you for asking, and like always the recovery period always makes me more prone to tiredness and feeling like a vegie.

Friday, marks the last day of school. School closed for 2 weeks for Diane, while Vincent starts his first freshman year on Monday.

Thank you everyone for visiting, hope you will all have a good Monday and a beautiful week ahead.

Goodnite.

edited : June 1 10:51am