Dragon Boats and Festival Food

This holiday celebrates a good guy; and everyone likes to eat the foods used to celebrate this occasion.  Who was he? He was Qu Yuan, a Prime Minister who lived from 340 to 278 B.C.E.  Why was he a really good chap? Because he tried to help his king but was not successful. What did he try to do? Keep him from squandering all his money, and more. 

So, in despair, Qu Yuan jumped into the Milou River and committed suicide hugging a large stone. This prevented his body from surfacing and made his countrymen distraught. They organized a flotilla to find him, but could not, so they pitched food packets called zongzi into that river to keep water creatures from eating him. That deed, a desperate act on the part of a very honest man, occurred in 278 B.C.E. on the fifth day of the fifth month in the lunar calendar. It occurred in the month we now call June.

Nowadays, people still celebrate this event to honor this beloved statesman. They do so eating and adoring zongzi, which are pointed packages of rice and other foods wrapped in bamboo or lotus leaves. They liked Qu Yuan, and they like these dumpling-like foods so much that they also eat them any day during the year.   

Eating zongzi is most common on this day, now called Dragon Boat Festival. Dragon boat races are now held worldwide on that day. If you have never seen one, contact your local newspaper to find out where and when the races are being held. They might not know how these races originated, but we do. They began long before the prime minister was born, but when and how they were tied to his demise is not known. The races themselves, stiff competitions, are very well known. Hundreds, if not thousands, cheer the large canoe-like boats on, each with someone in them beating a huge drum to keep them rowing in unison. Dragon Boat races are popular in most southern Chinese cities and others where Chinese people gather to cheer them on. 

Zongzi are popular everywhere; and young and old love both sweet and salty ones. Make them for yourself and for your customers. Everyone will love them! We know because the recipes appeared in Flavor and Fortune. Many readers wrote to say just that, and that they loved the fact that they freeze well.

Sweet Zongzi with Bean Paste

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons sweet rice, also known as glutinous rice
2 tablespoons oil  
2 tablespoons lime water
36 dried bamboo leaves, approximately
10 ounces red bean paste
String to wrap them into packages

Preparation:
 
Wash sweet rice and soak in water overnight. Drain rice, add oil and lime water and mix well in a big bowl.
Wash and soak dried bamboo leaves. Trim the pointed ends so that three to four sheets put together lattice fashion form a rectangle with a pointed top like a pyramid. Keep leaves soaked in clean water until ready to use.

Divide the rice mixture into 12 equal parts. Put one part on one of the rectangles formed by the bamboo leaves. Divide the red bean paste into six parts. Put one part of the red bean paste on top of the rice mixture already on the bamboo leaves. Add another part of the rice mixture on top of the red bean paste. Fold the bamboo leaves over lengthwise and cover the rice pile. Bend the ends under on both sides and loosely tie a piece of string around the bamboo package. After tying up the package, shake it gently to see if you can hear the rice rattling inside. If you cannot hear any sound, the package is tied too tightly. Untie and do it over again.

When the materials are evenly distributed and wrapped, put the packages into a big pot and fill the pot with water to cover them. The ingredients should yield six large packages or twelve smaller ones. Bring the pot to a boil, lower the heat to medium, and cook them for about six hours. Use tongs to take out the packages. Untie and then unwrap them. Serve, or cool and store for later use. These packages freeze well, so make lots of them, and serve them with sugar, honey or syrup.

Salty Zongzi

Ingredients:
2 pounds sweet rice, also known as glutinous rice
1 teaspoon oil
2 pounds mung beans
1 tablespoon sugar
4 ounces dried shiitake mushrooms
2 teaspoons salt
8 salted egg yolks
8 fresh chestnuts, peeled
2 teaspoons five-spice powder
4 ounces lotus seeds, cleaned
2 teaspoons thin soy sauce
24 dried bamboo leaves
8 dried lotus leaves
1 pound roast pork (optional)
String to wrap them into packages

Preparation:
Wash and soak rice and mung beans separately in clean water overnight. Drain each ingredient separately, and set aside. Add oil, sugar and salt to rice and mix well. Then divide the rice mixture into 16 parts. Divide the mung beans into 16 parts and set aside for later use.

Prepare the leaves by washing and soaking both the lotus leaves and the bamboo leaves. Then trim the lotus leaves, or fold each one into a square and remove or trim the pointed ends of bamboo leaves. Put three bamboo leaves on top of one square of lotus leaf.

Clean and cut the stems off shiitake mushrooms and soak them in clean warm water until they are soft.  Remove and discard the stems. Prepare the roast pork, lotus seeds and chestnuts as follows: Cut roast pork into eight pieces. If using dried lotus seeds, pre-soak them until they are soft; discard any bitter shoots inside. Cook the chestnuts until soft. 

Put the roast pork, chestnuts, lotus seeds and mushrooms in a bowl and add five-spice powder and soy sauce; mix them well and divide this mixture into eight equal parts. On the stack of lotus and three bamboo leaves, put one part of rice mixture, one part of mung beans and one part of the roast pork mixture, and on the pork mixture add one salted egg-yolk.  Put another part of mung bean on this and then another of the rice mixture. 

Pick up the four sides of the leaves and wrap the mixture into a cube-like package and tie it up with some of the string. Repeat steps 9 and 10, making these packages until all the materials are used to make eight packages. Put the packages into a big pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for about seven hours. Drain and either serve, refrigerate or freeze the packages until ready to eat them. Before eating, remove the string and leaves, and serve.