How to wrap zongzi?

Zongzi is delicious and soft, and many people like it, especially during the Dragon Boat Festival. It is a traditional food with a long history, and almost every household will wrap zongzi, but everyone wraps zongzi in a completely different way, but it must be remembered that it should not be too tight when wrapping zongzi, otherwise the taste will be seriously affected and water will be lost.

Modern practice

Seasoning of dumpling stuffing: Fresh pork should be mixed and kneaded repeatedly with a little monosodium glutamate, sugar, wine, salt and soy sauce until the seasoning penetrates into the pork, and then packaged.

Binding of Zongzi: Do not bind the dumplings with bean paste too tightly to prevent rice grains from squeezing into the bean paste. If it is not cooked thoroughly, it will be caught. Bacon jiaozi If you use fat pork, don't tie it tightly, and the tightness is moderate. If you use lean meat, tie it tightly, because the lean meat will shrink after cooking, and the fat juice of dumplings will leak into the water, which will not keep the dumplings fat and waxy.

Boil zongzi: boil zongzi in water before putting it down. Soak the surface of zongzi with water and cook for about 3 hours. Do not add raw water in the process of cooking zongzi. It should be noted that Goushui Zongzi cannot be cooked with other Zongzi. Take it out when it's cooked. Open the leaves of zongzi when eating. Zongzi is fragrant and fragrant. Oil but not greasy, waxy but not sticky, salty and sweet, fragrant and tender.

Material selection of zongzi: leaves wrapped in zongzi are different in different areas and places. Bamboo leaves or reed leaves are mostly used in the south. In Hainan Island, China, Hiragi Leaf, a plant unique to Lingnan, is also used to wrap the leaves of Zongzi, and its shape is usually triangle, pyramid or square. In the Central Plains, the leaves of dumplings are mostly mistletoe leaves, which are cuboid.

Guangdong-style jiaozi is mostly filled with bamboo leaves, and the surface is smooth, soft and tough. Shantou people usually wrap zongzi with bamboo leaves. Zongzi has the fragrance of bamboo leaves, but it should be cooked until soft. In Shanghai and other places, leaves collected from Huangshan Mountain in Anhui Province in dog days every year contain special fragrance, commonly known as "Huizhou Fu Ruo".

Hiragi leaf

The leaves of jiaozi are first-class in China. Its Hainan name is eggplant Hiragi leaves (Hiragi leaves in Hainan, and sometimes Hiragi leaves with few flowers). The southern vegetation is called Winter Leaf, and the modern Chinese dictionary is called Hiragi Leaf [4].

Hiragi leaves of eggplant are the largest leaves in jiaozi. Compared with leaves as big as a few fingers, the Hiragi leaf of eggplant is a "big brother". However, many people in China don't know that Hiragi leaves are wrapped in zongzi. The reason is that the Hiragi leaves of eggplant grow in a limited area. Eggplant Hiragi leaves only grow in Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi and other provinces in Lingnan, so only a few places such as Hainan and Guangdong and Guangxi use eggplant Hiragi leaves to wrap zongzi. In the north of Wuling, there are no Hiragi leaves of eggplant. Most people don't know or don't know the Hiragi leaves of eggplant, because they don't know, many people take it for granted that Hiragi leaves are similar in shape to banana leaves.

Hiragi leaves wrapped in eggplant have been very popular in Hainan and Guangdong since ancient times. In the Qing Dynasty, Qu Dajun said in "Guangdong New Language": "Ciyun in Zhi Zhu, Guangzhou: Winter leaves (Hiragi leaves) are sold in the streets of May, rolled into pieces, like banana."