Cooking tips: How to wrap Bah Zhang or Chinese Dumplings at Fun Bee Park

Saturday, June 13, 2015

The Bah Zhang Season is upon us and most of us will be blessed with Bah Zhang to eat. Bah Zhangs are basically Chinese style rice dumplings wrapped with bamboo leaves. I was really excited to be invited to a Bah Zhang gathering where home chefs bring in some of their best home made Bah Zhang from their home kitchen family handed down recipes! wOO hOO!

There are different types of Bah Zhang depending on which province you originated from.

Some are stuffed with stewed pork belly with mushrooms and salted yolk, some just with peanuts, some with red bean paste, and some even with spiced curry.

The type of rice is generally sticky rice but I’ve seen some even made with black glutinous rice or wild kampung rice, which gives a more interesting colour contrast.

They come in all shapes and sizes depending on how you wrap them!

Oooo DROOLS~~~

Black Glutinous Rice Vegetarian Versions!

One of my favourites at the Bah Zhang event is the Nyonya Bah Zhang with blue flower dye!

Being a multicultural event – there’s no pork in the bah zhangs we have today – halal versions ~~

Everyone was happy to bring their dumplings to share ~ we even had a dumpling wrapping competition with attractive prizes!

Cecilia was so generous to give us some jumbo tiger prawns to bring home ~ look forward to a prawns sharing session in the future!

Generally, especially amongst the younger generation, we don’t really learn how to wrap a proper Chinese Dumpling. We only know how to buy and eat – and the art of family members gathering together to wrap dumplings as a family is a rarity. Here’s a video I snapped while at a Bah Zhang event where we get to eat different types of dumplings from different cultures! This video is in Mandarin language, and gives you tips on how to wrap bah zhang. I hope you enjoyed this video – many thanks to Sister Ah Yan who taught us how to wrap Bah Zhang step by step ~~ and for being so patient with me (my camera actually ran out of battery half way through recording and I have to keep reshooting! and Cecilia from Fun Bee Park and Mei Ting from RTB PIlihan FM for organizing this!