Nonya Rice Dumplings 娘惹粽

Happy Swedish National Day! Or Happy Duanwu Jie (端午节)!The Chinese Dumpling Festival happens to fall on the same day as Sweden's very quiet national day so I thought I will make some of my favorite rice dumplings. I prefer these Nonya dumplings because they have less fatty meat and normally have a more pepperish/spicy kick to it. I took this recipe from Patsie Cheong's Homemade Nonya cookbook but halve the recipe and omitted some ingredients that I didn't have, but still made about 10-12 medium-size dumplings. One thing I would say, wrapping dumplings require practice and patience, and this Youtube video clip can get you started on the former ;)

Ingredients

(A) 600g glutinous rice, soaked for 3 hours

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoon cooking oil

(B) 250g lean meat, poached and diced

40g chopped dried shrimps

125g candied winter melon strips, diced

15g dried mushroom, chopped

(C) 30g shallots

15g garlic

1.5 stalks of lemon grass

15g galangal

1/4 tablespoon chili padi, 

(D) 1/2 tablespoon soy bean paste

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tablespoon chili boh

25g coriander powder

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Two boiled bamboo leaves for each dumpling, with corresponding number of straws to tie them.

Steps

1. Drain the rice and mix it with the rest of the ingredients in (A), set aside.
   
   
   
2. Pound or process the ingredients in (C) as finely as possible.
   
   
   
3. Heat up 2 tablespoon of cooking oil in a pan and fry (C) until fragrant.
4. Add the dried shrimps to the frying pan and fry until they are slightly roasted.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Add the meat, mushroom, candied winter melon and stir fry it until it is well mixed, this will be the filling. Let it cool before using.
   
   
   
   
6. Wrap the dumplings with rice-filling-rice sequence, using a deep pot, boil up half a pot of water with 1 tablespoon of salt. Add the dumplings in when it is boiling, then turn it to low heat and simmer for up to 5 hours. (Mine is still simmering away as I am posting this)
   
   
   
   
   
7. When they are done, hang them up on a hook to drain, eat when hot. You can reheat them by steaming of microwaving.