Chinese people eat sticky rice / glutinous rice dumpling (粽子zong zi） during dragon boat festival (端午节 duan wu jie). There are a few different ingredients to add in the dumpling and they can be sweet of savoury. There are also different ways of wrapping the dumpling.

Chinese people celebrate dragon boat festival to commemorates the death of an important person called Qu Yuan (屈原）.

A cadet member of the Chu royal house, Qu Yuan served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu Yuan was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason.During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.

It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him or to retrieve his body. This is the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan's body. Therefore it comes the zongzi.

To make the rice dumpling, the ingredients are as follows:
( I made a medium size dumpling, I manage to make about 20 dumplings)

* 1kg glutinous rice
* 700g pork belly
* 10 shiitake mushroom
* 3 golden shallots
* A handful of dried shrimp
* 20 chestnuts
* Dark soy sauce
* White pepper
* 5 Spices powder.
* 40 pieces bamboo leaves
* String

Notes:
** From the experience, it is best to remove the chestnut when it is still hot. When it cools down completely, it will be harder to remove.
** Using pressure cooker, it is much quicker to get the dumpling cooked. If you do not have pressure cooker, you can simmer in the big pot of boiling water and cook for 2.5 hours （this is the traditional way) but please make sure you add the water when necessary. (Water need to cover the whole dumpling).

温馨提示：
** 试做了之后，我觉得剥栗子最快，最好的方式就是在栗子上面划一个刀口，放入微波炉里，大约1分钟左右（只要栗子爆开了，就可以了）。 从微波炉里拿出来之后，趁热，把它快速剥开。一旦它冷却之后，它又变得很难剥了。 那你就再把它放入微波炉里热一下，又可以了。所以建议分批放入微波炉。
*此次做法我是以高压锅来煮这个粽子，我觉得效果非常好。而且很快。时间上省了很多。如果没有高压锅，那就以传统的方式制作，放入一锅滚水里，煮个2.5个小时。当然中间你必须时刻观察锅里的水，适当的加水。

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