How to make Zong Zi 粽子- bamboo leaves filled with sticky rice, meat and vegetables then steamed/boiled. This is a traditional food especially around 6th June – Dragon Boat Festival. They are also popular at other times, these little green triangles of food are quite filling for their size, so one or two is enough for most people with some other dishes on the side. When it’s cooked, don’t worry, you unwrap the Zong Zi 粽子 and just eat the contents of the folded leaf, not the leaf!


The ingredients to make Zong Zi :

5 Chinese bowls of uncooked ‘Sticky Rice’
5 bowls of water
one Chinese bowl of dried onions
one Chinese bowl of dried shrimps
one Chinese bowl of dried mushrooms
one Chinese bowl of dried octopus
one Chinese bowl of beef
one Chinese bowl of pork
half a bowl of chopped bamboo
80 bamboo leaves
20 grass strings (will be folded in 2 to make 40 strands)

The method :

1)soak the rice in the water for about half a day;
2)marinate the pork and beef in soy sauce for a couple of hours;
3)soak the mushrooms, octopus and shrimp in water for a couple of hours;
4)fry the ingredients together starting with the uncooked meats, adding everything else part by part except for the dried onions;
5)take about 80% of the food out of the frying pan and set aside;
6)to the remaining 20% add in the wet rice, octopus water, mushroom water and boil it up to get rid of any excess water, add the dried onions last and mix it all together;
7)fold 2 bamboo leaves into a pouch and add some rice, then some of the meaty ingredients, then level over with more rice;
8)fold the leaf closed and hang it using the grass string. Repeat this 40 times!
9)add the uncooked Zong Zi top a pan of boiling water (just and so covering them), simmer for about 30 minutes;
10)the Zong Zi are now ready to eat;
11)they can be refrigerated or frozen for warming up later, they are good warmed up in a microwave, no problem!