Making of Dumplings

Today, we Chinese celebrate the Dumplings (also known as Dragon Boat) festival which falls on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (May 28th).

Mum and Aunt Serene decided to make their own dumplings again this year.

As with most Chinese festival, there's always a story (sometimes mystical) on why it's being celebrated.

In it's Wiki page, it's said that dumplings were thrown into the river either to feed fishes or dragons (I still want a dragon pet thanks to Eragon!) to save a suicidal scholar's life in the olden days.

However the festival came about, I'm sure nobody throws dumplings into rivers anymore.
Unless they want to feed the catfishes.

Fried glutinous rice is a must for dumplings.

Lots of yummy ingredients to stuff our dumplings with.

Salted egg yolk is Melaine's and my all time fav. We wanted century egg in our dumplings but the Mums said "No...no...no" =(

Dried oysters and scallops

Chinese mushrooms & chestnuts with some groundnuts.

Some beans which is omitted in those dumplings made by me =P

Dried scrimps (these are kinda big, I prefer those smaller "ha mai")

Lean pork 'cause we're health conscious. I actually prefer it to have some porky fats as it adds flavour to the dumpling making it super yummy.

Without these, there's no dumplings. Bamboo leaves =) (which got hijacked at Jusco during our shopping trip)

This is how you make a dumpling...demonstrated by Mum.

Take 2 bamboo leaves and stack it together.

Then, fold it into a cup like in the pic.

Make sure there is no hole at the bottom of the bamboo cup to avoid making a big mess.

Fill the bamboo cup with all the ingredients...don't put too much as you still need to add the rice.

Fill up the remaining spaces of the bamboo cup with glutinous rice.

Now, this is where real skills are needed...

Make sure you have a good grip on the cup and it's not too full.

Then fold the tail of the leaves to cover the cup like a lid.

If it's overflowing, then take some of the ingredients out of the cup and try again.

This is how it should look like with the lid close.

Take the remaining tail and fold it to the side so that nothing is sticking out.

Take a string and tie the dumpling. Make sure the string goes over the tail to keep it in place.

Showing off my skills at making dumplings.

Mum and Aunt Serene are surprised mine turn out so well -_-

I never said I didn't know how to make dumplings...just too lazy to show them I could =P

Dumplings are made in little bunches like these.

We made so many dumplings...I've got a feeling Melaine and I will be having dumplings everyday for a week O_O

Boil the dumplings in lots of water for a few hours until you're sure it's cooked

Once cooked, it doesn't look different much. Maybe just a little more plump and the bamboo leaves colour kinda faded a little.

This is our own home made dumpling =)

I hope everyone is enjoying their dumplings today and not throwing it into the river.

Though I know someone is complaining that the 7 dumplings she ate at home doesn't have any salted egg yolk =P