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 !