Rice Dumplings

Two of my favorite people I've met here are Kei and Leyang Chen. They are the parents of one of my fellow teachers and I've had the privilege of spending quite a bit of time with them visiting places in the city, eating local food, enjoying Kei's cooking and just hanging out.

Last Saturday they took me to a family member's home to watch a group of women making traditional rice dumplings (zongzi). These dumplings are traditionally eaten during this time of year so women get together to make dozens upon dozens of them to both eat and freeze for use during the year.

They start out with bamboo leaves that have been washed and soaked so they are pliable. They make a cone shape out of it and stuff the bottom with rice. Depending on the area, the rice is either cooked or uncooked and may include different ingredients. In this case they had lightly fried rice with peanuts.

They were sitting on low stools around this center pole that had hooks with string. Each bundle will have 10 dumplings so 10 strings. Each person fills the bamboo cone with rice and then little surprises before wrapping, tying and hanging the dumpling.

Some of the ingredients they were filling the dumplings with were walnuts, tiny cooked shrimp, pork, mushrooms, and salted duck egg yolk (those are the golden orange things below).

After the bundle is complete, they are boiled (or steamed) for over an hour. You could smell the bamboo and all the ingredients in the steamy air in the apartment. They had 3 pots boiling to handle all of the dumplings being assembled.

I was so impressed with the speed of the wrappers. One woman was able to make a dumpling in about 30 seconds before moving onto the next one. She just had a handle on exactly how much rice and tidbits to add without overfilling it.

Another traditional item I got to both eat and drink involved local plums. This is the season to get these tiny plums that are preserved in sugar. Those on the left have been recently preserved in layers of sugar. The jar on the right is filled with plums that were preserved a year ago. You both eat the plums and then put the syrup in either hot or cold water to drink. I had both and they were delicious! The plums were both crispy and chewy and not as sweet as you would think. If they left the liquid ferment, then this would become plum wine.

I have been so lucky to experience so many amazing things during my year here in Taiwan. Next year, more adventures!