Ba zhang

Ba zhang or zong zi are glutinous rice dumplings. They are stuffed with stir fried pork, Chinese sausages, chestnuts, mushroom and then wrapped in fragrant bamboo leaves, secured with string, and boiled. Took us the entire afternoon to make them. The most difficult part is wrapping them - if they're not tied securely, water will seep in or the ingredients will leak out. We discovered this when boiling the first batch! The shape didn't turn out as planned too... the dumplings are supposed to be tetrahedrons, but they are sort of squished and have the wrong number of corners (6 or 8?!). Taste-wise, they turned out well. Good enough to share with friends!