Haven't had these for a long time...

What are these? Yumm...My lunch today was a completely home-made delicious bak-zhang, literally meaning meat dumpling. It takes an ample amount of time to prepare, cook and wrap these little gastronomic deliveries. That's not all either, after all that, they have to be boiled for another 5 hours to declare consummation.

This past weekend, I went to hang out at my friend's place. Upon arrival a wave of redolence pleasantly greeted my sensitive nostrils. My friends were just in the initial stage of attempting to wrap the ready ingredients.

The whole concoction is made of a plethora of ingredients, including glutinuous rice, mushroom, dried shrimp, pork belly, and black-eyed peas. All the ingredients have to be half-cooked before the important step of wrapping.

Being the busybody that I am, I grabbed 2 pieces of banana leaves and forged ahead with the seemingly easy task. But oh no no no...Easy doesn't even come close to describing the wrapping process.


My endeavors to make a beautifully-wrapped zhang proved to be inefficacious as the hour wore on. The leaves had a propensity to tear before I could even secure them with a string.

My friends and I were about ready to call it quits when uncle offered us some much needed tips on handling this insurmountable task. Nevertheless it took uncle several repeated slow-mo demonstrations to beat the idea into our thick skull. Then there were several more devastating trials and erroneous attempts before we finally grasp the secret to wrapping a decent-looking zhang.

Buoyed up by our eventual comprehension, it gave us impetus to wrap the remaining dumplings. Although they still didn't look all that perfect, it was a poignant delight to at least produce a resembling zhang. Reheating it in the microwave with a few pats of water enhanced the dumpling with a lacquer sheen!