Steaming wrapped for thousands of years is actually a "regular customer" at the table
When Zongzi was regarded as a Dragon Boat Festival delicacy, Zhaoqing and even Cantonese people ate not only "Dragon Boat Dumplings", Zongzi has always been a "regular customer" in Cantonese morning tea and breakfast.
Steamed
According to research, as early as the Han Dynasty, "Reed Leaf Wrapped Rice" (Zongzi) has appeared in the "Commentaries on the Interpretation of Texts", which is said to have originally been a tribute to ancestral gods, and it was not until the Jin Dynasty that Zongzi was officially designated as the Food of the Dragon Boat Festival. As one of the most profound traditional foods in China's historical and cultural heritage, the popularity of zongzi in the Zhaoqing area of Guangdong Province has long diluted the dragon boat characteristics, and it also has another name - wrapped steaming.
"Chinese New Year's Eve thick smoke cage purple mo, family dust wrapped in steamed incense." This is the Qing Dynasty poet Wang Shizhen describing the grand situation of Zhaoqing urban and rural Chinese New Year's Eve boiling and steaming. The relevant records of the "Chronicle of Zhaoqing Province" show that on the eve of the Spring Festival, every household in Zhaoqing scoops glutinous rice, grinds mung beans, washes winter leaves, wraps and steames, and the streets and alleys are built with stoves.
Freshly baked steaming, untie the mat grass, unpack the winter leaves, without any seasoning, directly eaten, sweet and soft, endlessly evocative.
Nyonya dumplings
Steaming still retains the traditional way of making it
Zhaoqing wrapped steaming is obviously different from ordinary rice dumplings. In general, zongzi are mostly wrapped with mangrove leaves and bandaged with cotton thread, while Zhaoqing wrapped and steamed is wrapped with local winter leaves and dressed with mat grass, most of which are pyramid-shaped.
The main raw material for Zhaoqing steaming is glutinous rice, and the filling is mainly pork. Cut the pork into granules, enter a blender and marinate with salt, koji wine, peanut oil, white sesame seeds and five-spice powder.
Since the Qin and Han dynasties, Zhaoqing steaming has continued the tradition of hand-wrapping. In the industrial workshop, a skilled worker can pack more than 1,000 a day with sufficient raw materials. Wrapping and steaming requires the use of a mold, after placing the winter leaves, put the glutinous rice, filling, glutinous rice in order, and finally cover the winter leaves and press tightly, wrapped with mat grass.
The wrapped semi-finished product is steamed for several hours over a high heat and then baked, hung to dry, steaming in a steaming wrap with a unique aroma of winter leaves. There are many ways to eat it, either it can be cooked and eaten directly, or it can be added with chopped coriander, green onion, sautéed sesame powder and an appropriate amount of peanut oil and soy sauce, and can also be dipped in egg paste and fried in lard until golden brown.
The little Nyonya dumplings are wrapped in a leisurely Chinese love
Like the Zhaoqing people, Malaysians eat rice dumplings, which are not limited to the Dragon Boat Festival. The 2020 remake of the hit series "Little Nyonya" has made people know Nyonya, a female group born after the Marriage between Chinese and locals, and also let Nyonya cuisine enter the vision of the Chinese.
Little Nyonya
Zongzi cuisine has been popular in China for thousands of years, and has spread to Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries. Nyonya dumplings are developed after the Chinese arrived in Malaysia and other places, integrated with local eating habits, and constantly changed.
In terms of production methods and processes, Nyonya dumplings are both similar and have many changes. Especially in the production of fillings, Nyonya rice dumpling fillings not only have pork, but also winter melon sugar, but also add coriander, green onions and garlic, shiitake mushrooms, sauces and other sautéing, to be cooled and then wrapped up.
In addition, the bigger difference is that Nyonya rice is also added to the Nyonya rice dumplings. Blue rice is named after a natural pigment made from butterfly bean blossoms that dye white glutinous rice blue. Therefore, Nyonya dumplings are also known as blue dumplings, just like Chinese blue and white porcelain, blue and white, small and exquisite, pleasing to the eye.
Modern Nyonya may no longer understand Chinese, but delicacies such as rice dumplings are taking root in another way in a foreign country and inheriting the Chinese context.
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Ctrip
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Zhaoqing 3-Day Independent Tour (From Guangzhou, Ctrip Self-operated)
2 nights hotel accommodation , Free and convenient travel (round trip by high-speed rail)
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Cai Huafeng Zheng Jielin
【Video Production】Zhou Xinyu Luo Junmin (Intern) Chen Yajing (Intern)
【Video Transcript】Cai Huafeng
【Video dubbing】 Zheng Jielin
【Poster】 Cui Chengbi
【Planning/Co-ordination】Cai Huafeng Zheng Jielin
【New Media Operation】Cai Huafeng Ma Hua
【Acknowledgements】Publicity Department of Zhaoqing Municipal Party Committee Zhaoqing Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism and Sports, Tourism Bureau of Malaysia Penang Tourism Bureau
【Production】Good Life Lab
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【Author】 Cai Huafeng; Zhou Xinyu;Zheng Jielin
Good Life Lab
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