Ma was chatting with Ah Yi (meaning aunt, from mother’s side) the other day about what to prepare for the upcoming Qing Ming Festivals. For this festival, it is customary for Chinese family to prepare food offerings to be brought together with some paper money and joss stick to the grave of the ancestors. After cleaning the grave, paper money and joss stick will be burnt while the food offerings are to be shared among family members.
My Biao Jie (cousin sister), apparently was craving for some Bak Zhang (that’s rice dumpling in Hokkien language). So, Ma decided that we should make some Bak Zhang as food offerings for Qing Ming day. Jie (elder sister) was so excited as Ma had not prepared this dish for years! Hence, she requested to record down Ma’s recipe this time around.
Warning: If you are expecting for a total traditional recipe, then look through another blog already! My Ma’s ready to accept new and convenient ingredients, so you’ll be seeing a lot of ready-to-go ingredients.
For about 25 pcs of Bak Zhang, below are the ingredients
- Glutinous Rice: 1kg
- Pork (Half fatty): 1kg
- Black Eyed Beans or Red Beans: 500g
- Bamboo Leaves: 50-60 leaves
- Chestnuts: 25-30 pieces
- Salted Egg: 15 eggs
- Mushroom: 100g
- Fried Shallots: 100g
- Rafia Strings (If you managed to find traditional strings, then it’s good! But we normally use plastic rafia strings because it’s easily available)
- Seasoning and other ingredients include: Cooking oil, salt, pepper, dark soy sauce
- Dried oysters
Preparation:
Before we start cooking, remember to prepare these in advance (some ingredients need to be prepared a day before).
The glutinous rice doesn’t need to be prepared in advance, only need to be washed before cooking. However, avoid soaking or keeping it too long after wash because it’ll get soggy.
Cut the pork to an average size of 2cm x 2cm x 2.5cm. Marinate the pork overnight with
- 3 tablespoon of soy sauce,
- 1 tablespoon of sesame oil; and
- black pepper powder to taste
Wash the black eyed beans and boil over high fire for 30 minutes or until we get the soft texture. If you are using red beans, you would want to boil it for a longer time.
Black eyed beans: It’s starting to get soft as the outer layer started to peel off.
Bamboo leaves that you would normally able to buy are the dried ones. The dried ones need to be soaked overnight, wash and drip dry before using. The one we are using are fresh bamboo leaves, so it only needed a quick washing and drip dry.
Chestnut is another ingredient that need tedious preparation. However, Ma found packed chestnuts available in the supermarket and had never turned back since! So, I never got to know how to prepare it in case I can’t find the packed ones!
Preparing the salted eggs is quite easy. Clean off the salted sand and crack the eggs. Raw salted eggs yolks are already solidify, separating the yolks and whites is a piece of cake. We won’t be using one whole yolk for one Bak Zhang, so remember to cut the yolks into half, like this.
Soak mushroom overnight (about 4-6 hours). Cut away the studs as we wouldn’t be needing them.
Prior to cooking, if the mushroom are too big in size, cut into half.
We have always had fried shallots in hand. In case you don’t have any, just simply cut some shallot and deep fried it under high fire. Otherwise, you can also find some packed fried shallots in the supermarket too. Wouldn’t recommend it much though.
When all the ingredients are ready, we are ready to rumble!
Cooking:
Put 2 tablespoon of oil into the wok. Once the oil is heated, add in the washed glutinous rice, half of the fried shallots, 5 teaspoon of pepper, 5 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoon of dark soy sauce and turn the fire to a smaller flame (mid range).
When you see that the rice started to clump together (about 3 minutes), add in the black eyed beans/read beans and turn the fire back to high. Continue stir fry for about 5 minutes. You can turn off the fire when rice started to look a bit dry.
When tasting for the rice, we are expecting it to be a little saltier to taste. It’s because we will boil it in a later process.
The rice is now ready to be wrapped. But wait! How about the pork? Well, of course, we would have to cook that as well. But needed to side track for a while as has Ma forgotten about the oysters!
Preparation for fried oysters are as easy as the mushroom, soak them overnight and it’s ready to go… into the wok.
So, now that we have put the fried glutinous rice on a big bowl, add in some oil to the empty wok again (about 1 tablespoon) on high fire. When the oil is heated, add in the mushroom and oysters, fry till fragrant. Next step, is to add the pork.
To this, we will add 3 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, 2 teaspoon of pepper, 1 teaspoon of salt. Fry over high fire for about 5-10 mins until the pork is about 70% cooked.
Then, we are ready to do the wrapping!
Once they are wrapped and tied in bundle, we are ready to boil it. Possibly, look for the biggest pot in the house, fill it up to more than half with water.
Remember to add some salt (about 2 tablespoon). Put it to boil on high fire for at least 3 hours.
And here is the final product!
I hope that you’ll enjoy the Bak Zhang.
Post:
As many of my friends would doubt that I am ever a cooker, well, they are right. I am not too keen on the whole cooking stuff. Some would even question as to how someone like me would be able to make a nice wrap of Zhang.
Well, I have an extended family of about 50 people and we used to make up to 400 pcs of rice dumpling for the Duan Wu Festival (Dragon Boat Festival) together. So, we will be needing as much manpower as we have. Therefore, Jie and I were somehow trained for Zhang wrapping. It’s does not matter whether I like cooking or not, I am just forced to just do it. This is what maketh a family, everybody has to help.
But now, I am making these records and recipe, rather than for the pleasure for cooking, I am reliving the pleasure of time spent with family and relatives in the accord of making food.
