THERE’S always a sense of excitement when you unwrap the leaf wrappers of a Chinese rice dumpling. Even if you have some idea of what to expect of the contents, digging in to discover the hidden treasures is one of life’s simple joys.

The moment you open the wrapper of a hot dumpling, a fragrant aroma immediately rewards your curiosity. Bamboo or lotus leaves are usually used to wrap the glutinous rice and these wrappers lend their herbaceous aromas to the food.

While rice dumplings are sold by hawkers throughout the year, interest in the food peaks during the chung cheet or Duanwu festival that is annually celebrated by the Chinese community on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which this year corresponds to June 11 on the western calendar.

The festival commemorates the death of court official and poet Qu Yuan, who stood up to a corrupt government of the Chu kingdom in ancient China. Wrongfully dismissed and charged with treason, Qu protested against the injustice by drowning himself in a river.

Fishermen who heard the tragic news raced in their boats to look for the noble scholar. To buy themselves time, they threw rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river to lure the fishes away from Qu but the search proved futile.

Folklore also has it that the folks beat drums and gongs to scare off the fish. The act became an annual custom which until today, associates rice dumplings with dragon boat races. While the dragon boat festival is normally held mid-June in Penang, the dumpling festival usually lasts a month or so.

Known as chung (Cantonese), chang (Hokkien) or zongzi (Mandarin), the glutinous rice dumplings are wrapped in dried bamboo leaves and have basic savoury fillings of pork, chestnuts and mushrooms. There are also plain versions, called kan sui chung, which are made using alkaline water and are usually eaten dipped in sugar or palm sugar syrup. Some alkaline dumplings may also have sweet fillings of red beans or yellow beans.

While the basic ingredients used in making rice dumplings are similar, there is great variation in the fillings among the various Chinese dialectal groups. The most popular and tastiest is arguably the Hokkien dumpling known as ''kiam bak chang'' or ''salty pork dumpling'', a parcel filled with a chunk of belly pork, shiitake mushroom, chestnuts, salted duck egg yolks and dried shrimps. The Hokkien chang gets its main flavouring from soy sauce, which also stains the rice a dark brown.

This contrasts with the pale Cantonese version which has similar filling ingredients. It’s only lightly flavoured with soy sauce so the taste is more subtle, with the flavour of the leaf wrapper more pronouced. Black-eye or/and mung beans are commonly added to the Cantonese chung.

Although the dumplings are generally wrapped in a pyramid shape, the Hainanese wrap their dumplings in banana leaves in a rectangular parcel and call them ''chim kau tarng'' or ''pillow dumplings''. The tradition of using banana leaf in place of bamboo leaf can be traced back to the tropical vegetation on Hainan island in southern China where the banana plant grows in abundance.

The Peranakan (Straits Chinese) community makes dumplings which have a rather sweet taste and fondly refers to them in Hokkien as ''pua kiam tee chang'', or ''salty-sweet dumplings''. The filling is strongly spiced with ground coriander seeds and the less common cekur ginger lending its distinctive taste. The meat is diced very small and candied winter melon provides bursts of sweetness. A small piece of pandan leaf is also used to line the bamboo leaves and this adds a vanilla-like fragrance to the dumpling while a shock of indigo blue-coloured rice gives the nonya chang its distinctive look.

Lotus leaves are also commonly used as wrappers. As the leaves are wider, dumplings wrapped in lotus leaves can provide a sizeable meal for small eaters. When steamed, the lotus leaf also imparts a delicate, tea-like fragrance to the rice. In Sarawak, pandan leaves are used, giving dumplings a sweet fragrance.

Recipes with this article:
- Chef Low Kim Ong helms the dim sum section of Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel’s West Lake Garden Chinese restaurant. His specialities include Beijing-style dim sum, hand-pulled noodles, mooncakes and dragon beard candy.
- Debbie Teoh is an avid cook and home caterer for local favourites, cakes, cookies and nonya cuisine.