Hello Kindness,

Zongzi, the delicious rice dumplings stuffed with sweet/ savoury fillings depending on regional style is synonymous with Dragon Boat Festival. The practice of eating zongzi on the Summer Solstice is concretely documented in literature from around the Late Han (2nd–3rd centuries), which was later made official during the Jin Dynasty ( 266–420 AD).

READ MORE OR JUMP TO THE RECIPE HERE

Although the popular myth amongst the Chinese is that Zongzi, a food offering made to commemorate the death of Qu Yuan, a famous poet during the Chu Kingdom, I have always known Zongzi as the food to consume/ give to others during the Qing Ming festival- an Ancestor’s day. On this day, people who observe it visit their ancestor’s tomb to clean, and pay respect. Even though we don’t observe the ritual, every year my grandma would prepare countless amounts of Zongzi / Bakcang as we called it. The homemade dumplings are distribute among the families and relatives to enjoy. Like many Chinese Festival food, Bakcang have auspicious meanings! I learnt that the 4 sides of Bakcang hold beautiful outlook and philosophy.

The first side zhi zu symbolizes contentment, the opposite of greed. The second side gan en points to being grateful for what we have. The third side, shan jie stresses on seeing goodness in others, and positive thinking. The last side bao rong calls for tolerance- keeping togetherness between people. How beautiful!

There are so many varieties of shapes and filling from different parts of China. This particular Bakcang recipe is of Hokkien style, with a triangular pyramid shape. Unlike Chinese Zongzi which is mostly made of glutinous rice, in South East Asia, particularly Indonesia, rice Bak Chang is more popular than its glutinous rice counterpart. When Bak Chang is made with glutinous rice, we use long-grain glutinous rice that resulted in a smoother, blended texture. Chinese Zongzi uses short-grained glutinous rice which keeps its granular form when cooked.

Like many Zongzi from the South of China, Bak Chang is filled with savoury ingredients. The rice is normally seasoned with soy sauce (sweet and salty). Hokkien style Zongzi is normally filled with salted egg yolk, shiitake mushrooms, chestnut and braised fatty pork with five-spice powder and sweet soy sauce, giving a rich, decadent, umami flavours. I substituted the chestnut with peanuts, an ingredient that my grandma used in her Bakcang.

It has been years since I moved to Canada. I have been contemplating trying my hands at making Bak Chang. I have always heard how difficult, tedious and intimidating is the wrapping of Bakcang, deterring most people from making them. Due to the different variety and unique flavours of each type of regional Zongzi, store-bought Zongzi can’t appease my food memory of my grandma’s Hokkien style Bakcang.

When the opportunity arise to make this Blue Butterfly Pea Bak Chang with my partnership with Suncore Foods, I challenged myself to learn to wrap them! After watching an endless amount of tutorials, I finally did it and am ready to show the methods to you! The result is so rewarding, beautiful and of course so delicious!

It was certainly an intuitive process- one that requires feelings, lots of patience, and coordination but it is worth trying! When the logic clicked, it was easy! So fear not, I will help you to make sense of the process through my instructions and video shared here. You will be rewarded with the most delicious treat!

HOW TO MAKE BLUE BUTTERFLY PEA SAVOURY HOKKIEN STYLE BAK CANG/ ZONGZI

Hope you challenge yourself to make some Zongzi this year!

Xx,

M