![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Cooking Experiment: Healthier Zongzi
This was my most ambitious experiment to date... Not completely successful, but I think I learned a few things.
To begin with, zongzi, joong, or the Chinese rice dumpling by any other names, is essentially a pyramid of sticky rice, filled with fatty meats, usually a salted duck yolk, and a piece of lap cheong, or Chinese sausage, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed or boiled. It's delicious, fatty, and very bad for you. You won't find it in most restaurants, but it's cooked once a year in traditional Chinese households to commemorate the Dragon Boat Festival.
The legend has it that some famous poet tried to stop the conquest of his kingdom, but failed and threw himself into the river in grief at this. Moved for their beloved icon, the people threw rice dumplings into the water to lure the beasts away so that they would not eat the poet's body. I have my doubts about this - there's no way any real Chinese person throws away perfectly good food over someone who's dead - but anyway...
I had a yen to try making this, but with as many touches as I could to make it healthy, but still tasty. So what follows is that experiment. Bear in mind I've never made zongzi (or 'dohnes' as we call them in my family') before...
>
My biggest challenge was figuring out how to wrap and tie the zongzi. I used a few references:
Travels with Sandy and part 2, which shows how to wrap them Taiwanese style
Another source with a video of zongzi wrapping.
4 cups brown rice
2 cups sweet rice
1 cup peanuts
1 lb ground turkey
0.7 lb bok choy, finely chopped (half a head)
Spices including 5 spice powder and white pepper
Oyster sauce
Garlic
Sugar
12 pearl onions (about 1/3rd the bag)
1 1/3 lap cheong (Chinese sweet pork sausage)
Makes 16 zongzi.
Cotton string
Chopping board (for chopping bok choy)
Large frying pan (for sauteeing meat and cooking bok choy)
Large mixing bowl (for meat/bok choy filling)
Large mixing bowl (for rice/peanuts/mung beans wrapping)
Steamer pot
Large (6 cup capacity) rice cooker
1. Wash rice. Cover with 2 inches of water over the top of the rice, and soak overnight.
2. To prepare the bamboo leaves: Boil enough water to cover all the leaves. Add one tbsp baking soda. Turn off the heat. Add bamboo leaves. Soak for an hour. Rinse with clear water and soak in clear water overnight.
1. Get the pearl onions out to thaw.
2. Marinade meat:
1 lb ground turkey
2 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp dried chopped onions
1 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp 5-spice powder
0.5 tsp white pepper
1 tsp sugar
4 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)
2 Tbsp black vinegar (or cooking wine)
3. Chop the bok choy finely. Think 'cole slaw'.
4. Wash rice (combined brown and sweet rice) and mix with peanuts, press the button to start cooking.
5. Stirfry the meat on high. Turn to low, let juices run out of the meat, remove the meat to a bowl.
6. Add some chicken stock and put the finely chopped bok choy in. Put cover on and steam.
7. When the bok choy is completely cooked, mix it up with the ground turkey and press it down into the bowl.
8. Once the rice is done, scoop it out into a large mixing bowl and mix to ensure peanuts are well distributed.
8a. Add some sea salt at this stage to the rice.
9. Chop the lap cheong lengthwise, turn 90 degrees (onto the new flat sides), chop again. Then cut segments into thirds, giving 12 sections per sausage.
I initially tried to make and use mung beans, but that part was a failure, so I haven't included it in this recipe. My family's dohnes recipe does use mung beans in the rice.
You should drain and soak the bamboo leaves in clear water again before you use the leaves. Some recipes suggest that you run a sponge over the front and back of each leaf, but I think this is kind of overkill.
1. Place two bamboo leaves together
2. Fold into cone shape (see the Travels with Sandy video)
3. Place generous scoop of rice into cone
4. Make a hollow, forming the rice into a pocket
5. Insert slice of lap cheong and pearl onion
6. Put the turkey and bok choy filling on top, to the level of the rice
7. Cover it with more rice
8. Fold the cone over, tie it up with string securely so it won't fall apart
8. Steam each batch of 8 for 45 minutes
At around the point that I had just wrapped my first zongzi, I realized I hadn't paid much attention to the string tying part of the video... As a result, my zongzis have string all over the place. No big deal: since all the ingredients are pre-cooked, I'm only steaming them 45 minutes. This would be a problem if I were boiling them, since they'd have to be waterproof.
One other thing is that, evidently I'm doing it wrong somehow because what I wound up with are tetrahedral zongzi, not the longer and larger dohnes with which I'm familiar. I need to ask one of my relatives to teach me the family wrapping method.
First mistake, I think, is that the rice needed salt. To compensate, I've written that into the recipe above. Adding some sea salt after you've cooked it will work better, since you'll need less salt for flavor.
Once I added a bit of salt though, I was honestly surprised, the brown rice and sweet rice made a perfect zongzi coating. There's definitely no reason to use plain sweet rice, in my mind.
The filling could have used more flavor. Also, with the quantities I originally began with, I had way too much filling, compared to the rice. I've decreased the amount of meat suggested but kept the spices the same for this recipe. What struck me as I sautee'd the turkey was that it just seemed to soak up the soy sauce and oyster sauce I added, like water disappearing into a desert.
Zongzi freeze well, you can just take them out and microwave them, or steam them if you have time to burn. One is a snack, two are a meal.
To begin with, zongzi, joong, or the Chinese rice dumpling by any other names, is essentially a pyramid of sticky rice, filled with fatty meats, usually a salted duck yolk, and a piece of lap cheong, or Chinese sausage, wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed or boiled. It's delicious, fatty, and very bad for you. You won't find it in most restaurants, but it's cooked once a year in traditional Chinese households to commemorate the Dragon Boat Festival.
The legend has it that some famous poet tried to stop the conquest of his kingdom, but failed and threw himself into the river in grief at this. Moved for their beloved icon, the people threw rice dumplings into the water to lure the beasts away so that they would not eat the poet's body. I have my doubts about this - there's no way any real Chinese person throws away perfectly good food over someone who's dead - but anyway...
I had a yen to try making this, but with as many touches as I could to make it healthy, but still tasty. So what follows is that experiment. Bear in mind I've never made zongzi (or 'dohnes' as we call them in my family') before...
>My biggest challenge was figuring out how to wrap and tie the zongzi. I used a few references:
Travels with Sandy and part 2, which shows how to wrap them Taiwanese style
Another source with a video of zongzi wrapping.
Ingredients
4 cups brown rice
2 cups sweet rice
1 cup peanuts
1 lb ground turkey
0.7 lb bok choy, finely chopped (half a head)
Spices including 5 spice powder and white pepper
Oyster sauce
Garlic
Sugar
12 pearl onions (about 1/3rd the bag)
1 1/3 lap cheong (Chinese sweet pork sausage)
Makes 16 zongzi.
Useful Items
Cotton string
Chopping board (for chopping bok choy)
Large frying pan (for sauteeing meat and cooking bok choy)
Large mixing bowl (for meat/bok choy filling)
Large mixing bowl (for rice/peanuts/mung beans wrapping)
Steamer pot
Large (6 cup capacity) rice cooker
The Previous Night
1. Wash rice. Cover with 2 inches of water over the top of the rice, and soak overnight.
2. To prepare the bamboo leaves: Boil enough water to cover all the leaves. Add one tbsp baking soda. Turn off the heat. Add bamboo leaves. Soak for an hour. Rinse with clear water and soak in clear water overnight.
Cooking the Ingredients
1. Get the pearl onions out to thaw.
2. Marinade meat:
1 lb ground turkey
2 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp dried chopped onions
1 tsp ground ginger
0.5 tsp 5-spice powder
0.5 tsp white pepper
1 tsp sugar
4 Tbsp oyster sauce
2 Tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)
2 Tbsp black vinegar (or cooking wine)
3. Chop the bok choy finely. Think 'cole slaw'.
4. Wash rice (combined brown and sweet rice) and mix with peanuts, press the button to start cooking.
5. Stirfry the meat on high. Turn to low, let juices run out of the meat, remove the meat to a bowl.
6. Add some chicken stock and put the finely chopped bok choy in. Put cover on and steam.
7. When the bok choy is completely cooked, mix it up with the ground turkey and press it down into the bowl.
8. Once the rice is done, scoop it out into a large mixing bowl and mix to ensure peanuts are well distributed.
8a. Add some sea salt at this stage to the rice.
9. Chop the lap cheong lengthwise, turn 90 degrees (onto the new flat sides), chop again. Then cut segments into thirds, giving 12 sections per sausage.
I initially tried to make and use mung beans, but that part was a failure, so I haven't included it in this recipe. My family's dohnes recipe does use mung beans in the rice.
Wrapping Zongzi
You should drain and soak the bamboo leaves in clear water again before you use the leaves. Some recipes suggest that you run a sponge over the front and back of each leaf, but I think this is kind of overkill.
1. Place two bamboo leaves together
2. Fold into cone shape (see the Travels with Sandy video)
3. Place generous scoop of rice into cone
4. Make a hollow, forming the rice into a pocket
5. Insert slice of lap cheong and pearl onion
6. Put the turkey and bok choy filling on top, to the level of the rice
7. Cover it with more rice
8. Fold the cone over, tie it up with string securely so it won't fall apart
8. Steam each batch of 8 for 45 minutes
At around the point that I had just wrapped my first zongzi, I realized I hadn't paid much attention to the string tying part of the video... As a result, my zongzis have string all over the place. No big deal: since all the ingredients are pre-cooked, I'm only steaming them 45 minutes. This would be a problem if I were boiling them, since they'd have to be waterproof.
One other thing is that, evidently I'm doing it wrong somehow because what I wound up with are tetrahedral zongzi, not the longer and larger dohnes with which I'm familiar. I need to ask one of my relatives to teach me the family wrapping method.
Let's eat!
First mistake, I think, is that the rice needed salt. To compensate, I've written that into the recipe above. Adding some sea salt after you've cooked it will work better, since you'll need less salt for flavor.
Once I added a bit of salt though, I was honestly surprised, the brown rice and sweet rice made a perfect zongzi coating. There's definitely no reason to use plain sweet rice, in my mind.
The filling could have used more flavor. Also, with the quantities I originally began with, I had way too much filling, compared to the rice. I've decreased the amount of meat suggested but kept the spices the same for this recipe. What struck me as I sautee'd the turkey was that it just seemed to soak up the soy sauce and oyster sauce I added, like water disappearing into a desert.
Zongzi freeze well, you can just take them out and microwave them, or steam them if you have time to burn. One is a snack, two are a meal.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Do share your friend's recipe if you can find it?
no subject
At least I can think about them, though! O;D
no subject
I don't actually cook that much, I just blog about it sometimes.
no subject
no subject