Bak Chang, Zongzi (粽子) or Chinese Rice Dumplings is the distinct food of the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu jie 端午节), which is celebrated amongst the chinese community.
Singapore, being a mulit-racial country, has many different versions of the rice dumplings, like nonya rice dumpling, teochew bak chang, hokkien bak chang, hakka bak chang, alkaline rice dumpling (Kee Chang). Each version has its own distinct ingredients and colour in the traditional offerings, but the main ingredients are similar.
1) Bamboo Leaves
Bamboo leaves are the key ingredient to wrap the rice dumplings into the triangular pyramid shape. For alkaline rice dumpling (Kee Chang), smaller bamboo leaves are used as there are no fillings inside the rice dumpling. For those rice dumplings with many fillings, two leaves are used to wrap the fillings of the one single Bak Chang, so as to ensure the fillings will not leak during cooking.
Please soak the bamboo leaves overnight to soften the leaves!
2) Strings
To tie the bamboo leaves and prevent the bak chang fillings from leaking out during cooking, strings are used to tie the bamboo leaves together. A common commercial practice is to use plastic raffia strings to tie the bak chang, however many are concerned that the plastic may release chemicals during cooking the bak chang in boiling water. Hence, many customers still prefer the traditional bamboo strings to tie the bak chang.
However, Singapore Food industries (SFA) has conducted studies that the chemicals concentration that migrated from both plastic and cotton strings into the dumplings was low. For more detailed information, please refer to SFA. https://www.sfa.gov.sg/food-information/risk-at-a-glance/rice-dumplings
3) Glutinous Rice
Also known as sticky rice, glutinous rice is the main ingredient in preparation of bak chang. The long grain type is the preferred choice in southeast asia, original from countries such as Thailand.
In general, glutinous rice needs to be soaked, after that mixed with the other ingredients to make the perfect fillings for the rice dumplings.
4) Dried Shrimps
Dried shrimps are added and fried together with other ingredients to enhance the fragrance of the rice.
5) Dried Mushrooms
For best fragrance, choose dried shiitake mushrooms. Pre-soak the dried mushrooms overnight, and remove the stem before frying it together with other ingredients. Do not use fresh mushrooms as it does not have the unique fragrance of dried mushrooms.
6) Dried Chestnut
A key ingredient for bak chang, it needs some preparation before usage. Dried chestnut is very hard and needs to be soaked over night. If your forget to soak it, you can instead soak with hot water to speed up the progress. After soaking with water, you can use a small toothpick or fork to remove the left over skin or membrane on the dried chestnut.
7) Salted Egg Yolk
Who can get tired of salted egg? We like to add salted egg to almost everything, mooncakes, rice dumplings.
8) Five Spice Powder
Five-spice powder is a seasoning blend of ground spices, appearing as a dry brown powder. In chinese cuisine, it is most often used to flavor braised or roasted meat. And in this case of the rice dumplings, it is used to enhance the flavour of the meat filling, and it’s added to the meat and stir fry to bring out the fragrance.
9) Coriander Powder & Coriander Seeds
An important ingredient for nyonya bak chang is coriander powder, paired together with candied winter melon strips, it makes a slightly sweet rice dumpling.
Coriander powder adds a mild flavour and aroma to the sweetness of the rice dumplings.
You can also buy coriander seeds, pan fry and grind into coriander powder for better fragrance.
10) Lye Rock / Abu Chang / Soda Ash / Alkaline Rock
An important ingredient for preparation of Alkaline Rice Dumplings (Kee Chang), where the Lye Rock adds the color and alkalinity to the bak chang to make it chewy and bouncy. The Lye Rock is broken into small pieces, add water to dissolve into alkaline water and added to the glutinous rice.