Zong 粽 Zongs!

so quickly (too quickly for my liking), it's already the middle of May and it will soon be Dragon Boat Festival 端午節 next week ... a holiday weekend signified with loadsa dragon boat racing  all over  the Territory and eating delicious Glutinous Rice Dumplings 粽 (pronounced "Zong") in the week before and after .... i usually partake in the latter mentioned exercise only ...

anyhow, this afternoon it was Zong production central at my sister Frances' household, when she invited her friends round and got down and dirty in the dumpling wrapping process ...

i love eating tasty Zongs ... so, it was real fascinating stuff, learning about the cooking process and was sorta philosophically therapeutic watching the ladies at work, as well as listening-in on their culinary secrets ...

they were wrapping-up the two most popular types of Zong, Salty Pork 鹹肉粽 and Alkali Water  梘水粽 .... the standard 3-part make-up of Zongs are: 1/3 glutinous rice, 1/3 green beans & 1/3 depending on whether it is a Salty Pork type and its accompanying ingedients or with sweet paste filling if for the Alkali Water types ..skillifully wrapping them in dried bamboo leaves, ready to be cooked in boiling water ... yummy!

Salty Pork Zong ingredients ... dried shrimp, dried salty-egg yoke, dried scallop and of coz some "lean" fatty pork ... served with soy sauce (and some people add granulated sugar also) ..

Alkali Water Zongs are usually filled with either sweet red bean paste or lotus paste ... and served with syrup or honey ...

Enjoy ur respective Zong munching everyone ... it's a wonderful Chinese tradition!