Homemade dumplings are absolutely the best! Because they are made with lots of love. While they are so delicious that we can finish them in minutes, making them takes planning and days of preparation.
It starts with getting ready all the ingredients: bamboo leaves (or banana leaves for some), strings, glutinous rice, meat, mushrooms, chestnuts, five-spice powder, condiments, garlic and other additional ingredients.
The meat and mushrooms need to be marinaded in soy sauce while rice must be soaked in water before being drenched in five-spice powder and soy sauce. Toss in some chopped garlic to additional oomph.
Even the bamboo leaves and dried plant stems to be used as strings are required to be washed, boiled and soaked in water overnight.
Then comes the day of wrapping!
It takes almost the whole day to wrap the dumplings. And so do the cooking of dumplings. Each batch needs minimum 3 hours to be cooked to sticky goodness. So first batch goes into the pot at 9am, and the last batch comes out of the pot at 11pm.
The tremendous amount of effort needed to make these dumplings is a show of love. Love you, mum! Your dumplings are the best!
