Have been doing these for years but did not have the chance to update the blog. After a few house moves, I almost lost the recipe and I thought I better keep the information safe and easily retrievable for future use....
Yum yum, delicious nonya rice dumplings.....
Now, to back track abit... I wanted to learn the "art" of making rice dumplings since young. The first lady whom I come across who does this is my late Aunt, but she does the traditional Hokkien-style meaty rice dumplings with the gao-lak, fatty meat, mushrooms... But I just didn't like the fatty meat... :(
It was not until I tasted my mother-in-law's nonya rice dumplings that I didn't mind eating rice dumplings anymore.
Ok, now that the interest is there, I got to start work ! My initial years of making the dumplings were just handling and making the pyramids. It was only the recent few years where I started to prepare the ingredienmts. My my my, it was
TOUGH work. Nonyas are known to be meticulous with their delicacies and as the name implies, all things are
delicate. The amount of dicing is horrendous ! And the preparation work takes A LOT of time!
Ingredients :
Yield about 220 dumplings
10 kg of
糯米(glutinous rice)
1.5kg of
香菇 (mushroom)
7 kg of
五花肉 (meat)
1.5kg of
冬瓜条 (winter melon sugar)
500g of pepper
2kg of small onions
200g of garlic
500g of
芫戌籽 (coriander seeds)
Others :
about 4 packs of AAAA leaves
Rafia strings
These are the preparation work ...
1) Fried onion
(a) Few kilos of onions need to be prepared as fried onions
(b) Reserve the fried onion oil for future use
2) Meat
(a) Meat needs to be blanched in water first to get rid of the "porky" smell. Discard the water.
(b) Reboil another pot of water. Cook the meat till about 70% cooked. Reserve this meat stock for future use.
(c) Dice all the meat
(d) Marinate the meat with coriander powder, pepper and salt. Leave overnight.
3) Mushroom
a) Soak the mushrooms in water to soften.
b) Discard the stems and dice all the mushrooms.
c) Cook with original water, oil and some sugar
d) Simmer till liquid becomes syrup.
Notes for preparation of mushroom :
1) Don't buy thick mushrooms as it is more tedious to dice
2) Diced mushrooms cannot be too big as the mushrooms will still expand when the absorb the water from the subsequent cooking
4) Winter Melon Sugar
Dice all the sugar
5) Stuffings
(a) Fry garlic (about 2 tbps) with the fried onion oil.
(b) Put in the diced meat and fry
(c) Add salt and pepper to taste. Fry.
(d) Add the meat stock when too dry
(e) When meat is at least 90% cooked, add diced mushroom and fry
(f) Add coriander powder. Add stock if dry
(g) When almost done, add the winter melon sugar and fried onions. Mix till even.
6) Leaves
(a) Soak leaves in water and soften them. Can also add hot water to quicken the process
(b) Wash each leaf with cloth
(c) If possible, after washing, continue to soak leaves in water to let them remain soft.
(d) Before using to make the dumplings, wipe off the excess water on leaves (this is said to prevent the rice from sticking onto the leaves subsequently after cooked)
7) Glutinous rice
(a) Soak rice in water for at least 2 hours. Water must more than sufficiently cover the rice
(b) Drain the rice
(c) Fry rice with coriander powder, pepper and salt.
After all the above is being prepared, the wrapping of the dumplings can begin !
Method :
After the many years of experience, for a good balance between the rice and stuffings, the process should be 0.5-1tbps of rice, followed by 1.5-2tbps stuffings, followed by 1-1.5tbps of rice again. Press the rice down for firmness. Start wrapping the dumplings.
Boil the dumplings in water for about 2 hours. After the first initial hour, exchange the positions of the bundles of dumplings to ensure that the dumplings can face equal heat to cook evenly.
After the 2 hours, scoop up the dumplings, hang them up to drip dry and cool.
Now, we are all done !
After thoughts :
~ (Yr 2014) : Add more oil when frying rice to help reduce sticking of rice to leaves
~ (Yr2018) : Rice must be sufficiently coated with taste. Coriander powder to be added to make sure rice turns "brownish".
