Chinese Dumpling Festival

Yesterday, June 19th, was the Chinese Dumpling Festival. Although my family doesn't usually make a big deal out of this "holiday" my dad did end up buying quite a few dumplings from T&T. My favorite is the Mushroom and Lotus Seed Dumpling... I also love the salted egg yolk in the Cantonese Style dumpling, but alas... you can't have both together :( I guess next year I'll make my own dumplings with mushrooms, lotus seeds AND salted egg yolk! Yeah!

Here's a little information about this little festival...

The Chinese Dumpling Festival, commemorates the death of poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in ancient China to protest injustice. As legend has it, fishermen would throw rice into the river to prevent fishes from feasting on his body. The symbolic 'chang' evolved into steamed glutinous rice stuffed with meat, beans, mushroom, salted egg yolk wrapped in bamboo leaves.

I remember reading about this story from my favorite Singapore comics, the "Bookworm Gang". You probably haven't heard of them but I still love them. Anywho... I love my chinese dumplings. I find that they taste best with Yeo's Sweet Chili sauce (granted, this sweet chili sauce makes anything taste good) and sometimes I like to sprinkle on a little bit of sugar... yum, yum. I love my chinese dumplings.

NOTE: If you look hard at the picture above, you can see a lotus seed popping out of the dumpling's top... can you spot the Yeo's Chili in the background?

Oh... and for dessert I treated myself to a sweet rice dumpling filled with red bean paste. Man am I full of rice at the moment... I don't think I could eat anymore. But seeing as how I live in a Chinese household I don't think that's possible

Such pretty pink thread

And the lovely red bean filling!