The Summer Festival is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month (the “double fifth”) of the lunar calendar (7th June this year). It is also known as the Kueh Chang festival, which is closely associated with the Dragon Boat Race Festival. In preparation for this special day, Nyonya ladies would get together and spend time making kueh chang dumplings, consisting of glutinous rice and usually with a stuffing in the middle, all wrapped in bamboo leaves from China (they are larger and preferable to the local Southeast Asian leaves). In some Peranakan communities, savory meat dumplings known as kiam bak chang are popular. However, in the Malacca Peranakan community, sweet meat dumplings known as kueh chang melaka are made instead, along with kueh chang abu that are made with an alkaline solution and paired with a choice of either sweet coconut jam (sri kaya) or palm sugar syrup (gula melaka) to temper the dumpling’s slightly bitter taste.
On the day itself, the dumplings are given to relatives and friends in remembrance of the Dragon Boat Festival. This celebration has its roots in an ancient belief of the Wu and Yue people of eastern and southern China who believed that river dragons controlled the water needed for agriculture. These dragons were fed such offerings in an attempt to control the rainfall necessary for the crops. In time, the festival was associated with another legend in which the poet, Chu Yuan, drowned himself in 277 BCE to protest a prince’s refusal to consider social reform suggested by the poet. Rice dumplings were taken by the rescuers as sustenance while they searched for the drowned poet. Legend has it that to keep the river dragons from feeding on the poet’s body, carved dragonheads were displayed at the helms of the boats, and dumplings were thrown into the river to distract the sea creatures. According to local belief, the dragons, upon ingesting the offerings, then instructed the local people to wrap the dumplings in leaves. This custom is now practiced to represent the qualities of family unity and loyalty, the same ones that Chu Yuan exemplified in his patriotic endeavors.
As a child, I would sit next to Mamah and watch her make this once-a-year kueh chang, mesmerized by her wrapping the various ingredients in leaves. It was astounding to watch the precision that she displayed in the folding of the bamboo leaves into perfectly formed cones, the addition of the right proportion of soaked glutinous rice and meat-mushroom stuffing into the leaf cones, and the deftness of her fingers as she produced tightly sealed, perfectly symmetrical pyramid-like dumplings in a couple of decisive and well-honed hand movements (video). After she shaped the dumplings, my stomach would growl as I impatiently waited to taste my favorite dumpling that was served only once a year for this celebration.
For the anticipation-filled grandchildren, all that mattered was the 2-hour wait while these dumplings were boiled, pulled out, and served piping hot. We used to dive into our plates without any sense of decorum. When this treat was “in season,” I mostly enjoyed them in the morning after they were warmed up in the steamer. As an adult living away from my homeland, I missed partaking in this annual ceremony. With that in mind, my auntie Madam Dolly Lee would freeze a bunch for me so I could enjoy them when I returned to Malaysia months later to visit her and my family. This dumpling truly brings back fond memories of my deceased relatives; even writing about this stirs up a deep yearning within me for these dumplings and their warm familial presence. To satisfy my year-long wait, I would eat them to my heart’s content for breakfast and tea for the next few days.
In the recipe, I have provided an easy alternative for those who, like me, are not deft enough with the bamboo leaves, which produces the same result as the traditional wrapping and cooking method. If you are wrapping the dumplings, make sure to use the leaves from China as they tend to be longer and more appropriate for wrapping.
To this day I have not perfected this elusive skill of dumpling making, despite breaking the folding process down into a science. I guess innate intuition and time-honed culinary skills cannot be easily replaced by book smarts.
Recipe from The Baba Nyonya Peranakans book
Makes 30 dumplings
Filling preparation time: 1 hour
Assembling and cooking time: bowl – 1 hour; wrapped dumpling – 3 hours (2 hours boiling)
For the filling:
2½ heaping tablespoons coriander powder, from 5 heaping tablespoons whole seeds
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced (1 tablespoon)
1 tablespoon ground bean sauce (Cantonese: meen see)
60 grams (2 ounces) dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 1 hour, stemmed and cut into ½-centimeter (¼-inch) cubes (1½ cups)
450 grams (1 pound) pork butt with a little fat, cut into ½-centimeter (¼-inch) cubes
250 grams (8 ounces) melon sugar, cut into ½-centimeter (¼-inch) cubes (1½ cups)
1½ cups water
1½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon thick dark soy sauce
For the rice:
8 tablespoons vegetable oil
12 cloves garlic, minced (3 tablespoons)
1 kilogram 400 grams (3 pounds) glutinous rice, washed briefly and drained
2½ teaspoons salt
¾ teaspoon white pepper
Bunga telang (blue pea flower) water
4 pandan leaves, tied into a bundle
Dried bamboo leaves, from China, washed and soaked in water, and striped into 2 long pieces along the spine (optional)
To make the filling
- If using whole coriander seeds, toast in a dry pan on medium heat – do not allow to burn by continuously shaking the pan. When they are fragrant, remove seeds to cool down. Crush seeds until a fine powder.
- In a pan on medium-high heat, heat the oil and fry the garlic for 1 minute until slightly golden brown. Add the bean sauce and stir well for 1 minute. Add the mushrooms and stir for 2 minutes. Add the pork, melon sugar, and coriander and stir well. Add the water, salt, and dark soy sauce.
- Cover the pan with a lid, lower the heat to medium low, and bring the filling to a simmer. Remove the lid and cook until the mixture is quite dry, about 10 minutes. There should be barely any moisture left. Remove and let cool.
To make the rice
- In a pan on medium-high heat, heat the oil and stir-fry the garlic for 1 minute until golden brown. Add the rice, salt, and white pepper. Lower the heat to low and stir the rice for 10 minutes until the mixture is quite dry, but not too dry.
- Remove and divide the rice mixture into thirds. Stain one-third with enough bunga telang water to make an even deep color but slightly translucent blue-stained rice (about ½ teaspoon coloring to a tablespoon rice) – use more coloring if necessary.
To assemble and cook the dumplings in bowls:
- You can make a medium-size rice dumpling in small rice ceramic bowls. Place the unstained glutinous rice in a wide container like a pie dish. Pour 3 cups of water onto the rice, add the pandan leaves bundle to the simmering water, and steam on medium heat for 20 minutes (you may place bamboo leaves on the bottom of the dish and on top, shiny side touching rice, to add fragrance to the dumpling). After 20 minutes, add another 1 cup of water and steam for another 20 minutes. Remove and cover with plastic wrap.
- If cooking a lesser quantity of cooked rice than what the recipe calls for, cover bottom of bowl with strips of bamboo leaf cut to size in a cross fashion with shiny side up, and add three times the amount of water to rice by measuring with the same spoon or ladle, or 2 tablespoons rice plus 6 tablespoons water per rice bowl. Steam until completely absorbed (15 to 20 minutes). Remove bowls, scoop out rice, and cover cooked rice with plastic wrap. Save the bamboo leave strips.
- Into empty (or the same) rice bowls, place back the strips of the bamboo leaves, shiny side up, and add 1 tablespoon of blue-stained rice and 2 ½ tablespoons of water. Steam for 15 minutes.
- Remove the bowls from the steamer. Make a slight indentation in the rice, add 1 heaping tablespoon of meat filling, and cover the mixture with 3½ tablespoons of cooked unstained rice, or the initial amount steamed in the bowl. Press down the top surface firmly and evenly with the backside of a spoon, and steam for 15 minutes. Remove and cover with plastic wrap while they cool down. Press down the top firmly to compact the dumpling. Refrigerate any unconsumed portions in the bowls.
- To serve, loosen the rice from the side of the bowl with a tablespoon or butter knife before inverting it onto a plate.
- To reheat unconsumed portions, steam the uncovered bowls for 15 minutes on medium-low heat.
- You can also wrap the dumpling the traditional way with soaked Chinese bamboo leaves (instructions link)
- Here is a video of the bowl technique:
The hardcopy and e-book of The Baba Nyonya Peranakans book (1st image) and Edible Memories e-cookbook (2nd image) are available – more information on the Homepage.
Baba Nyonya Peranakans 