Lesson on Cooking "Rice Dumplings", "Bak Chang" or "Pau Chung" Jun 5, 2010.m4v

'Pau Chung' or wrapping the rice dumplings is a skilled that not many can mastered. So a group of us friends decided to try our hands on this skill. It's not easy but definitely great fun. And for us amateurs, we did well. Only 6 dumplings unwrapped, out of the 100s that we made during the cooking time.
What you see here looks easy. But there's a lot of preparations before we can start wrapping. Leaves must be soaked for 2 days. And cleaned piece by piece. Rice & green peas must be soaked for 2 hours. Meat cooked with 5-spice powder. Mushrooms soaked and cooked. Chestnut unshelled. Only use the york of salted eggs. Then setting up so that it's easy to scope all the 7 ingredients. And after the wrapping, to cook for 4-5 hours.
Now for a bit of history of this 'rice dumplings festival'.
Duan Wu Jie is a widely celebrated festival amongst the Chinese, to pay respect to the patriotic poet, Qu Yuan (pronounced as Chue Yuan). The legend involves a really long and complicated throne-fighting war and political history. But to make a long story short: Qu Yuan was an important minister back in Chu Kingdom in ancient China. He had been known for his loyalty for the emperor of Chu, and loved his country greatly. However, His Majesty had not taken Qu Yuan's advice seriously, and he eventually got himself trapped and captured in a foreign land by his enemies, which then lead to his own death.
Sad and angry at the corrupted, dying Kingdom, Qu Yuan tied himself to a big rock and threw himself into the River of Puo Luo. The people then made rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and threw them into the river. They believed this would stop the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body. Some would even row down stream in a boat, beating drums and shouting out loud in the hope to scare the fish away (it was believed that it is how the Dragon Boat event is related to the festival).
Since then, the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese calendar has been set as Duan Wu Festival to remember the incident. Although there were versions of legends and stories that indicate Duan Wu has existed way before Qu Yuan's death, the tradition still carries on.

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• rice dumplings festival
• chung chit
• how to pau chung
• Qu Yuan
• Chue Yuan
• bak chang
• how to cook rice dumplings
• Duan Wu Jie

[ok250682]

i put all e ingredients shown here except green peas becoz my mum all along didnt that n we also dun like peas in it

First u must wash clean & soak e glutinous rice 4 maybe abt 1hr. If didnt, U just hv 2 cook for longer hours after wrapping it. U need 2 BOIL them in water added with 2 tble spoon salt bc e glutinous is raw & hard just like plain white rice. If u want e glutinous 2b more fragrant, fried 1st with light sauce & oil, leave it cool b4 wrapping. It will be fully cook in 3 hours.

[lilylee62]

@ok250682 Thank you for your advise.

[FullyUnleashed]

is it ok to just soak rice in cold water and then eat it?

[lilylee62]

@FullyUnleashed "Not sure what you meant. But after soaking you need to cook first before eating! :-) :-) :-)

[FullyUnleashed]

@lilylee62 what i meant was cud you cook it and then put it in the fridge and then eat it?

[lilylee62]

@FullyUnleashed oh, yes of course, can :-)

[joycemjgriffin]

I was thinking organize another popiah gathering for Sunday! haha!

[lilylee62]

@joycemjgriffin ok, will get you some when you come :-). Sure, we'll go Popiah house but not sure there's Popiah there though :-). See you soon :-)

[joycemjgriffin]

Waaah, makes it looks so easy! So who is selling it, I like to buy some back to Spore! I want to go to Popiah house!