Great, I totally failed in making these dumplings. I thought I could make it nicely, but it turned out to be a disaster. Wrapping them is extremely difficult, even though it looks easy. Or maybe my hands are just not skillful at all.
His mother makes this dumpling every year during dumpling festival (5th of May in lunar calendar), which is a Chinese tradition for the remembrance of a patriot – Qu Yuan. Of course, festival means ‘makan-makan’ (eating) session also. This year, I have the chance to observe her doing dumplings and learn from her.
My initial plan was to observe a while, and wrap together to help her. Luckily, she ‘foresees’ the result, and asked me to wrap for the last one, with just glutinous rice in smaller size. She told me, one should practice wrapping with sand/mud or other unimportant ingredients first, until you are confident and skillful enough to wrap dumplings, so that you won’t waste the food. She’s right. Look at what I’ve done to the pity leaves and rice.
It took me more than 10 minutes to come out with this tiny little dumpling. No matter you judge from size, shape or technique, it totally failed. So I did not put it together with other ‘QA passed’ dumplings into the big pot. Don’t feel happy yet when you managed to wrap them, it’s only successful when they do not break/open up after cooking in boiling water for 2-3 hours.
Sigh, I have to admit, I should really start from wrapping sand first, like how we played ‘mamasak’ (cooking game) during childhood. I promise I will pick up the skill and make dumplings successfully one day, to preserve our tradition and heritage.
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