Chilled tapioca pearl and strawberry tamales

Yes, I know. Chinese tamales are as to the Dragon Boat Festival as peppermint candies are to Christmas. But still, just as with those candies, we can – and should – be allowed to enjoy them whenever we want, holiday or not.

Today's sweet tamales are a divine treat for both the dog days of summer and the sweaty beginnings of autumn. 

This is a new and delightful Taiwanese spin on traditional Chinese tamales, which are almost invariably made with sticky rice. 

Instead, we use tiny pearl tapioca (which are different from Western tapioca, btw), and they gum up perfectly here to form bouncy little pillows that are insanely good when they are cold. While still hot, though, the tapioca is too soft and messy to even unwrap, so have patience for that brief chilling process, although I have been known (ahem) to sneak one or three while they are just slightly warm. I only have so much willpower.

Ready to wrap

Another twist is my very own: instead of red bean paste, I’ve used strawberry jam and toasted walnuts. I mean, I like sweet bean paste to a certain extent, but it can get rather monotonous, especially if you are a Chinese food junkie. 

But strawberry jam? It’s absolutely perfect here. That luscious fruitiness bordered with just an edge of tartness makes these refreshing on a hot day. Plus, the jam fools around with the tapioca as it cooks, winding its way into some of the centermost pearls and rendering them even lighter and gooier.

The other little lagniappe in here is toasted walnuts. I like my sweets to have as many interesting textures as possible, and walnuts really fit the bill. They ground the jam and turn this into a very sophisticated dessert or afternoon snack. And by toasting them I get rid of any resident tannins and make them both mellow and more deeply flavored.

Serve these up while the weather is still exhaustingly hot. 

Fluff-up pearl tapioca

Chilled tapioca pearl and strawberry tamales

Xīgŭmĭ căoméi bīngzòng 西谷米草莓冰粽

Taiwan

Makes 10 or so

1 cup | 200 g tiny tapioca pearls (the Chinese ones, not Western tapioca)

Cool water, as needed

10 dried bamboo leaves for wrapping

Very hot water, as needed

1 tablespoon neutral oil, like canola

2 teaspoons agave syrup or honey

10 tablespoons | 300 g strawberry jam

¼ cup | 25 g toasted walnuts, broken

Kitchen twine

1. Place the tapioca pearls in a medium work bowl and cover with cold tap water by about 1 inch | 2 cm. Let the tapioca soak until it swells up, about 20 minutes. Drain the tapioca well and toss with the oil and agave syrup or honey. Divide it into 10 portions.

Incipient deliciousness

2. While the tapioca is soaking, place the dried bamboo leaves in a large bowl and cover with very hot tap water. When they are soft and pliable, rinse and wipe them off, and then cut off the stem ends.

3. Have kitchen string ready, as well as a large steamer of any kind. (I usually use a kettle with a steamer insert.)

4. Working on one at a time, fold a leaf with the smooth dark side on the inside into a cone, as shown here. Be sure that you have that little fold on the bottom, since that is key to keeping the tapioca tucked away. 

5. Place half of a portion of the prepared tapioca in the bottom of the cone, add a tablespoon of the jam and a sprinkling of the walnuts, and then cover the filling with the rest of the tapioca. Fold the leaf over to enclose the tapioca and lightly wrap kitchen twine around the center. Be sure not to wrap these tightly, as the leaf will explode as the tapioca expands, and you will have a big mess on your hands. Repeat with the rest of the leaves, tapioca, and filling until you have 10 or so tamales. (Don’t worry if you have more or less than 10. They’ll still taste good.)

'Sago rice'

6. When the water under your steamer is boiling, place the tamales in there and reduce the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Steam the tamales for around 30 minutes, checking and refilling the steamer with boiling water as needed. Remove the tamales, bring them to room temperature, and refrigerate in a plastic bag. To serve, simply unwrap and enjoy. 

Note for all the language nerds out there: Tapioca pearls are traditionally called Xīgòngmĭ 西貢米 (Saigon rice), but recently I've seen this being rendered as xīgŭmĭ 西谷米 (I'm guessing that's a transliteration of 'sago' rice). Either one is correct. 

Not your momma's peanut brittle

I fell in seriously in love with Taiwan’s sweets practically from the moment I stepped off the plane. Peanut candy soon became one of the pillars of my diet. 

Part of the appeal was the lowered level of sweetness, as maltose is often used in place of part of the sugar. The other source of this lifelong addiction was the flavor and crispness of Taiwan’s peanuts, which are insanely good.

Penghu, or the Pescadores Islands, as they used to be called—Portuguese fishermen sailing around in Chinese waters just wasn’t that long ago, was it?—is an archipelago of about 90 isles scattered in the Taiwan Straits, right between Taiwan and Fujian. It also happens to be home to some of the greatest peanuts in the world. Yes, they are a bit on the small side, but these red-skinned wonders are worth seeking out.

Maltose

I’ve played a bit with tradition here and come up with something that works wonderfully as a bar snack. Instead of the usual sweetness and light of regular old school Chinese peanut brittle, I’ve made this a whole lot zippier. These can be seriously addictive chile bombs if you can get your hands on good quality peanuts seasoned with chiles and citrus.

For, that heat is marvelous and cuts the cloyingness of the candy. Plus, the citrusy touch (probably due to citric acid, rather than real limes or lemons) will have you reaching for another square while your mouth is still working on a piece. Serve these with chilled beer.

If you would prefer straight-up brittle, use plain toasted peanuts. Add about ½ teaspoon salt if the peanuts are unsalted, and then serve the brittle with hot tea. 

Your best bet for toasted peanuts would be a health food store with a fast turnover and a good selection of bulk bins. In my area, that might be Berkeley Bowl or Whole Foods. Places like Trader Joe’s have some good spiced nuts, too, but you won’t be able to sample them.

Caramelizing syrup

Get your maltose at any self-respecting Chinese grocery store. It comes in plastic tubs and usually is hiding on the sugar aisle. It’s easiest to weigh maltose, rather than spoon it out into a measuring cup. Either way, nuke the opened jar for about a minute, or just until the maltose has softened enough to spoon or pour out. It’s always a good idea to spray your measuring cup or bowl with oil, as otherwise maltose can be hellishly sticky.

That being said, that maltose makes for one heck of a great candy. The brittle really is crunchy, rather than sticky, because the sugars were all caramelized. So you see, we have caramel + peanuts + chile. I’m definitely in my happy place.

Crispy spicy Chinese peanut brittle chez Huang

Gooey strings that harden up

Huángjiā làxiāngcuì huāshēngtáng 黃家辣香脆花生糖

Makes almost 2 pounds | 850 g

Spray oil

1 cup | 200 g sugar

⅔ cup | 225 g maltose (see headnotes)

½ cup | 125 ml water

1 pound | 450 g toasted chile-lime peanuts, or any other unsweetened toasted nuts

¼ cup | 40 g toasted sesame seeds, optional

1. Prepare an 8 x 8 inch | 20 x 20 cm metal pan and a sheet of parchment paper (or foil) by spraying them lightly with oil, and have a silicone spatula ready. Place the sugar, maltose, and water in a high, 2-quart | 2-liter steel pan. (You will need the light color of the metal in order to determine when the sugar has caramelized, and it should have high sides so that the syrup doesn’t bubble over.)

Press into an even layer

2. Bring the syrup mixture to a full boil over medium heat, stirring it occasionally. As soon as it boils, cover the pan and cook the syrup for a couple of minutes so that the steam washes down any sugar, which might otherwise cause the syrup to crystallize after it cools, instead of staying nice and smooth.

3. Remove the cover and cook the syrup until it starts to caramelize, which will take about 10 minutes. The syrup will bubble up into a froth first, and then settle down into a smaller layer of bubbles just before the sugar darkens. Swirl the pan as it boils to achieve an even, light golden hue. It will smell like caramel when it’s ready. If you’d prefer to use a candy thermometer, that would be about 320°F | 160°C. When you have caramelized syrup in your pan, reduce the heat to the absolute minimum.

Perfect for Chinese New Year, too

4. At that moment, quickly stir in the nuts and optional sesame seeds, and then mix them thoroughly with the spatula so as to coat each piece well. Keeping the pan on low heat will help keep the syrup from seizing up. Scrape the mixture out into the prepare pan. Immediately cover the pan with the oiled paper and the towel, and then press down on it to create a level layer.

5. Cool the candy for a couple of minutes, just until the bottom of the pan is warm. Turn the pan over onto a cutting board and slice it into small squares or rectangles. Refrigerate in a covered container.

Deep-fried rice batons

To be honest, I haven’t a clue as to why something this simple and elegant and delicious is such a secret. It is just steamed rice cut into batons and fried. That’s it. But it’s also so much more, like mochi on steroids, and it’s something that I easily could (and do) dream about at night.

But when my friend Dianne Jacob mentioned this lovely way with rice to me recently, there was a happy look in her eye as she recalled the exact same dish her mother used to make for her. The daughter of Iraqi Jews, her parents and grandparents had lived in the free port of Shanghai before and after World War II. What Casablanca was to the West, Shanghai was to the East: a place where refugees and those who just wanted a bit of peace in their lives sought as a new home as they settled down and tried to achieve a touch normalcy.

Good rice is fresh rice

Dianne's mother obviously loved Shanghai because she wore Chinese clothes the rest of her life while dining on kosher Chinese. And you really can't blame her for finding joy and comfort in a dish like this, for it's one of those ingenious little things that make complete sense once you try them. Why we don't deep-fry rice on a regular basis is anybody's guess. 

You see, the outside is crunchy and hot, while the inside is creamy and faintly sweet. Dust these with a bit of sugar and a few sesame seeds or crushed peanuts for your morning treat. Doughnuts will never again look as good.

Actually, I could eat these all day.

Deep-fried rice batons

Zīfàn’gāo 粢飯糕

Shanghai and Jiangsu

Serves 8

Cut into batons

2 cups / 400 g sticky rice (brown or white), or use half white jasmine rice and half white short-grain sticky rice

3 cups / 700 ml water

Spray oil

2 cups / 470 ml peanut or vegetable oil (use ok if it smells fresh)

White sugar, optional

Toasted sesame seeds or ground peanuts, optional

1. Rinse the rice in a sieve under running water, drain, and place them in a saucepan. Add the water, bring the saucepan to a full boil, cover, and simmer it on low for about 20 minutes, or until all of the water has been absorbed. Turn off the heat and let the pan sit for around 10 minutes so that the rice can continue to steam. (If you have a rice cooker, follow the manufacturer’s directions for making 6 cups cooked rice.)

2. Spray an 8-inch / 20 cm square pan with oil. Pat the warm rice into the pan, even it out, and press down lightly on it so that the rice sticks together without any air pockets. Cover the pan and chill overnight.

3. The next day, empty the pan out onto a cutting board. Slice the rice crosswise in half and then lengthwise into 16 even batons. Have a plate ready covered with tempura or parchment paper; paper towels will stick.

Fry on both sides

4. Pour the oil into a skillet and place it over high heat. When a chopstick inserted in the oil becomes covered with bubbles, add as many of the batons as will loosely fit (or as many as you plan to immediately eat – whichever is less). Lower the heat to maintain a gentle bubbling around the batons, and carefully flip them over when the bottoms are a golden brown. When both sides have browned, remove to the paper-covered plate to drain. (You can make these as crisp or not as you like - little kids and older people will probably thank you for keeping these on the soft side, but I love these when they crunch and then weld to my molars. As always, to each his/her/its own.) Serve the batons hot with a sprinkle of sugar and some toasted sesame seeds, if you like.

Tips

This recipe can be changed up a million ways to fit your appetite and menu. Consider adding finely chopped ham, ground sea moss or laver seaweed (nori), toasted sesame seeds, minced green onions… whatever appeals to you.

Fragrant brown sticky rice

The rice used here is also a suggestion. Brown sticky rice is perhaps my favorite, since it has a subtly nutty texture and flavor, although I also really like the combination of the sticky rice with jasmine, as the texture remains light thanks to the jasmine rice, but tacky enough to hold together well due to the sticky rice. 

You can vary these as you like, of course, and add or substitute different rices (think Thai black rice and brown sticky rice for starters), with other grains like millet tossed in for variety.

One thing to watch out for is the freshness of the rice. The smell of stale rice will become achingly apparent, since this is all about the perfume and flavor and texture of the rice. Nothing else. Take a big whiff of the rice when you open the bag - it should smell sweet and delicious.

The fermented rice biscuits of Suzhou

It has only taken me about 35 years to figure out how to make these, but it was time well spent.

You see, I became addicted to fermented rice biscuits when I waited for one of Taipei’s buses to ferry me home at the end of a long day at the museum. Cold winter evenings were the worst. Rainy cold winter evenings were absolute hell. My feet would be wet and freezing, passing cabs would splash everyone with muddy puddles, and the gloomy skies made even a 15 minute wait seem like forever.

Fortunately, street hawkers plied the sidewalks with their homemade foods, most of them from every part of China, and I came to know these lovely people on a personal basis after my many years in Taiwan. One of my all-time favorite foods became these grilled biscuits. Lightly sweet and perfumed with fermented rice, a lovely lady from Suzhou used to roll out the dough, fill it, and grill the breads in her portable little kitchen. She had a tiny roof over the work area, and fragrant steam would shroud her wherever she stood, acting as both beacon and an irresistible advertisement.

Crunchy, pillowy, sweet & winy

To her left would be a shiny mound of dough covered with a damp cheesecloth, and as she sold each biscuit as soon as it left the grill, she was a never-ending whirl of activity, gracefully pinching off a fistful of dough, rolling it out, filling it, pleating it closed, and then rolling it out again before tossing it on her black grill.

The anticipation would be intense as I stood there, stamping my feet to keep them from going numb, but almost feverish in my impatience to grab the biscuit with my name on it. She would wrap it in a sheet of brown paper while the bread was still insanely hot, I’d fork over a few cents, and then I would first revel in the heat radiating out into my fingers and wafting up into my face.

Then, that first luscious bite: crunch would yield to tensile bread, with an explosion of wine hitting my nose. An afterthought of red bean paste would be inside, too, but all the mattered to me was the hot biscuit. I would then huddle over it, nibbling it slowly to make it last as long as I could, reveling in the way that even the coldest, most dreary winter might offer a reason for celebration.

Ready to go

Fermented rice biscuits

Jĭuniáng bĭng  酒釀餅

Makes 6

Jiangsu and Shanghai

½ cup/125g fermented rice solids (see Tips)

⅓ cup/75g fermented rice liquid, or mild rice wine (Taiwan Mijiu)

2 tablespoons sugar

1½ cups/260g all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading

1 teaspoon neutral oil (like canola), plus extra for oiling the frying pan

1½ teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons/ 45g turbinado or light brown sugar (see Tips)

3 tablespoons/ 60g toasted pine nuts, optional

Baking powder is my secret weapon here

1. Start this recipe at least a day before you plan to serve it. Mix the rice, water, and sugar together in a medium work bowl, and then stir in the flour to form thick flakes. Knead until smooth, adding more flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Rub the oil inside a clean work bowl and toss the dough around in it. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and keep it in a warm place 8 hours or even a day or two, which will give the wine yeast time to multiply and turn the dough light and fragrant. It is ready when you can poke two holes in the top and they don’t close up immediately. Also, take a nibble of the dough – it should taste strongly of the wine.

2. Place the dough on a smooth surface and sprinkle it with the baking powder. Knead in the baking powder until all feeling of grittiness is gone and the dough feels smooth once again. Roll it into a ball, return it to the bowl, cover, and let it rest for at least 20 minutes to give the gluten time to relax. The dough will have risen considerably at this point, too, as shown in the photo to the right.

The fluffy second rising

3. Cut the dough into 6 even pieces. On a very lightly floured board, roll each one out into 5-inch circles as if you were going to make baozi, which means that there will be a little bump in the center of the disc and thinnish edges – this will keep the top from becoming too thick. Divide the sugar and optional pine nuts among the discs and then gather the tops up, again as if you were making baozi. Roll the filled balls between your palms to smooth out the seams and then lightly press down on each one to form a patty-like object about 3 inches wide. (You may freeze these at this point and then cook them as needed later on.)

4. Set a wide, flat-bottomed pan on medium heat. When the edges feel hot, use a paper towel to lightly film the bottom with oil. Lower the heat to medium-low. Arrange as many of the discs as you wish to serve in the pan, leaving at least an inch between them so that they can rise as they cook without sticking together. Cover the pan tightly so that steam will form, since this will help cook the insides quickly without burning the outsides. When the bottoms are golden brown (about 5 to 7 minutes) and the biscuits have risen, turn the discs over and cover the pan again. Cook until the other side is golden, too, which should take around 5 minutes. Serve hot. (To reheat these, never ever use a microwave, but rather gently grill them again or even heat them in a low oven, as this will keep the bread from turning tough.)

Fill like baozi

Tips

The flavor of this really depends upon the fermented rice. It must be full-flavored for the biscuits to shine. What this means is that you should let your rice ferment for a couple of weeks so that it has a strongly alcoholic aroma and zero taste of fresh rice. Then, use only the thick rice solids for the first ingredient and the clear wine (or a neutral-tasting rice wine) as the liquid, which pack a double punch of flavor.

This is a specialty of Suzhou and other culinarily enlightened places along the Yangtze River, and each area seems to have its own take on what should be hidden inside. I’ve enjoyed these with the usual red bean paste, plain sugar, and sweetened ground black sesame. However, I’ve found that turbinado sugar and toasted pine nuts take this sweet to extreme levels of hedonistic pleasure, at least as far as I’m concerned.

That being said, don’t overdo it in the filling department. These biscuits are easily overpowered by anything that is too sweet or too whatever. Anything you put in the biscuits should simply serve to amplify and complement the aromas of the wine and bread.

Dimple surface from the nuts

What I’ve done different from any other recipe I’ve found for these biscuits is to use wine instead of water for the liquid, as this amps up the flavors quite wonderfully. I’ve also added baking powder, which makes the breads much lighter and less apt to turn leaden. Be sure and cover the pan, as that way the center cooks through thoroughly – there are few things as sad as a delicious biscuit with a raw doughy center.

Serve these at breakfast, afternoon tea, and as a well-deserved snack in front of bus stops. Hot tea is the perfect accompaniment. They are terrific hot, when the crust is crisp and the center molten, but even at room temperature they are amazing, as the sugar then forms a crunchy, caramelly contrast to the tensile dough.

In search of the elusive amber tamale, plus a short story on Life & Thyme

(Note: In addition to the recipe and blogpost below that will help you celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in style on Thursday, June 9, here is a link to a story I wrote and illustrated for Life & Thyme. It talks about how I was finally able to breach the yawning gap between my forbidding Chinese mother-in-law and a very young [and impossibly white] me. It has nothing to do with the Dragon Boat Festival, but oh well...)

Early in my marriage, I noticed that my Chinese husband became increasingly excited as Dragon Boat Festival approached, spending more time than usual haunting his favorite delis. He was, as I soon found out, stalking the elusive amber tamale. 

A gorgeous amber tamale

Unlike all the other varieties out there — including burrito-sized ones from Hunan with massive centers of braised pork or sweet bean paste, delicate Suzhou versions with date paste and pine nuts, or some simple Beijing rice parcels speckled with boiled peanuts — these were not on everyone’s radar, and so his anxiety would increase the longer the hunt took until he had finally tracked down someone who not only sold them, but made them with the requisite pillowy texture.

The first time I tried amber tamales (that’s my name for them, as the Chinese one, “alkali tamales,” or jiănzòng 鹼糉, is just not very appealing), I was bowled over. For one, they were semitransparent and a beautiful golden color very much like, well, amber. Second, they were cold and topped with some plain sugar. Third, the tamale itself had no filling... it was rice and nothing else. And finally, it was unexpectedly delicious. (By the way, the character for "tamales" can be written as either 糉 or 粽 - they mean the same thing.)

Much like my other favorite type, the one made with sticky rice flour and an assortment of savory things called bănzòng 板糉, this was a specialty of the Hakka, those latecomers to South China who seasoned the food of their neighbors with the ancient flavors of the North China Plain. Even now, jianzong are an integral part of Dragon Boat Festival ceremonies among the Hakka, as they are offered with other seasonal gifts to such deities as the Earth God (Tŭdìgōng 土地公). 

It's tamale time!

Be that as it may, I never really noticed them until I got married, and I probably would never have gotten around to eating one so early in my life if my husband and father-in-law were not dedicated amber tamale fiends. But to their credit, on a hot summer’s day it would be difficult to find something more satisfying to munch on than these little guys sometimes called jiănshuĭzòng 鹼水糉 sprinkled with sugar or honey for a simple snack.

The amber tamale also has a unique flavor courtesy of the alkaline water it simmers away in for around four hours, one that tastes slightly sulfurous, and so it is an acquired taste. Once I realized that it smelled a lot like an egg yolk, my brain stopped protesting, I lifted up my fork, and I took up the amber tamale habit with a passion.

Those first couple of years I found that the best ones were sold in Taipei’s South Gate Market, a food emporium packed to the gills with small stalls selling dried goods and large delis bustling with ladies who turned out some of the finest Chinese snack foods I have ever eaten. Watching them enfold raw rice into stacks of bamboo leaves was also an eye-opener for me because before then I never could get a grip on the secrets to wrapping them perfectly so that they looked beautiful and had the requisite bouncy texture in the center. But one day I stood there for close to thirty minutes, surreptitiously watching their every move while poking around in the bins out front and learned their moves.

Make the cone

As good as those store-bought ones were, making these you at home will give you the chance to taste these at their best. The problem is that most people turn jianzong into hard little nuggets with dry, powdery centers, and that just misses the whole point of these delectable bundles of joy.

The key is to wrap the raw rice so that there is just enough room for it to expand, turning these from raggedy looking parcels into familiar plump balloons. Some people put a green or red bean filling in these, but I like mine like this: plain and delicious.

Amber tamales

Jiănshuĭzòng 鹼水糉

Hakka

Makes 24 tamales

Zongzi:

Use folds to enclose the rice

2½ cups round sticky rice (yuán nuòmĭ 圓糯米)

1½ tablespoons baking soda

24 large, dried bamboo leaves (zòngyè 糉葉)

Large pot of boiling water

Butcher’s twine or dry grass ties

Garnish:

Dark brown or granulated sugar, honey, or osmanthus blossom syrup (guìhuājiàng 桂花醬)

1. Start this the day before you are planning to make the zongzi and two days before you want to eat them. Rinse the rice in a large sieve, drain, and then place in a large work bowl. Toss the damp rice well with the baking soda, cover, and let it sit overnight on a kitchen counter.

2. Either the night before or the day of, soak the bamboo leaves in very hot water, swishing them around now and then so that all of them get evenly soaked. Soak the dry grass too, if you are using it.

3. When you are ready to wrap the tamales, lay a large tea towel on a table and place the bowl of now very yellow rice there, along with a spoon, the twine or soaked grass, and a pair of kitchen shears. (Here is a video I made for instructions on filling and wrapping these.)

4. Next, wash the leaves by carefully sponging off both sides and then rinsing them. The edges of the leaves are sharp, so don’t cut yourself. Drain the leaves, pat them with a towel, and then wrap them in a clean towel so that they do not dry out.

Ready for the pot

5. Use your shears to trim off the stem end of the leaves, as well the point. Use only leaves that have no splits or holes; put any damaged ones to the side, as these can act as bandages (more on that later).

6. Now comes the fun part: wrapping the zongzi.  Hold a leaf at both ends with the shiny side toward you, and then curl the leaf around to make a cone in the center. Here is the first key to success: make sure that there is a little fold at the bottom of the cone that you can bend over, as this will seal in the rice. Scoop about 3 tablespoons of the rice into the cone, and then lightly fold the ends of the leaves over the cone. At this point comes the second key to success: lightly shake the tamale; if it rattles and no rice comes flying out, the wrapping is just right, but if you don’t hear the rice bouncing around, then the wrapper is too tight and you need to loosen it.

7. Wrap twine (or grass) around the center of the zongzi maybe 3 or 4 times, but not too tightly. Imagine that you are tying a string around a baby’s wrist, but you don’t want it to fall off: that is how tight/loose you want it. (The rice will swell up quickly in the boiling water, so don’t worry about the shape too much at this point.) Leave about 10 to 12 inches of twine or grass hanging off of the zongzi so that they can be eventually bundled together, and that’s it. Now do the same with the rest of the rice and leaves. If any of the leaves split, you can cut a piece of the broken ones off and insert it inside of the cone to act as a bandage. You should end up with 20 tamales, give or take.

Chilled & ready to eat

8. When all of these parcels have been wrapped and tied, bundle them in groups of 5 by tying the ends of the string or grass together into a knot. Then, gently lower these bundles into the pot of boiling water; the water should cover the tops of the zongzi by a few inches, as the rice will absorb the water. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cover the pot. Slowly cook the zongzi for 4 hours, adding more boiling water as necessary, and then drain them into a colander. Cool them completely, wrap in a plastic bag, and chill overnight.

9. To serve, unwrap a zongzi or two per person and arrange these on individual plates. Offer any of the garnishes (or all of them, if you are feeling particularly generous) to your diners. These can be eaten with chopsticks, but I’ve found that forks work particularly well here.

(This article originally appeared in more or less the same format in Cleaver Quarterly in 2014)