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Joong & Joongzi: The Topic


Dejah

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I also have a special table used only for this activity. It's an old card table of my mom's. When she moved in with my brother, she gave me the table for making joong as it is the perfect height to work on when we are sitting down for the all day session.

I am glad that this table gets used once a year! :smile:

Edited by hzrt8w (log)
W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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I've been thinking about Sue-On's method of soaking and boiling her leaves. I just wash and soak overnight, and I get cuts from the leaves although they are quite pliable and soft. I have to grip my joongs pretty tightly. Sue-On, do your leaves cut? Hmmm...seems like boiling with some vinegar may be just the right thing to do.

TPcal!

Food Pix (plus others)

Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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I have to soak, wipe and boil mine because we can only get dried bamboo leaves in London. Often the leaves are quite dirty so soaking them is essential

and we also have to cut the leaf stems off as otherwise they tend to pierce the overlapping leaf.

of course if you got fresh ones i think you just need to soak them

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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The bamboo leaves I buy are dried. In the past, they have always been dirty as they were not in plastic bags. Now, they come in bags so may be cleaner. However, I will continue to boil them as I am sure of the results...supple, clean, easy to work with.

I saw some information about boiling with vinegar somewhere... :unsure: It mentioned that the process ensures the the joong will keep well and mold free because the vinegar makes them squeaky clean! I'll buy that!

I don't remember ever being cut by the leaves. It could be worse than a paper cut! :shock: I run them between my thumb and the rest of the fingers...keeping the edge away from my palm. I am probably not as thorugh ny the time I am half thru' the batch!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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It's past midnight.

The huge pile of bamboo leaves have been blanched, washed, rinsed and put back into the tub to keep moist.

The "liu" of mushrooms, dried shrimp, peanuts, onion, lapcheung and salty pork are all set to go. We will sautee everything except the meats when the students get here tomorrow as I want them to see every step. I also have salted duck egg yolks ready.

The two adults coming are bring their own supplies. I sent them a work list on Monday. :laugh:

The turkey deep fryer is set up on the back stoop. It's raining again, but supposed to be sunny tomorrow. We will boil away in the back yard as we continue making joong.

We will have chicken jook, Chinese cruellers, century egg, chili radish, cilantro for lunch.

Supper will be joong! :wub:

If we can manage, the students will also make sui mai. I have spareribs marinating. For dessert, we will have red bean, lotus nut, peanut tong.

Hope to have lots of pictures!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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HOLD ON Sue-On, I am coming to Brandon :laugh:  :laugh:

Ben :smile:

Always room for more!

Leslie and Sija, along with "Amandasmom", 6 students from China, one from Korea. and one from Japan will descend at noon.

As I rinsed out my pot from blanching the leaves last night, I noticed quite a bit of fine dirt at the bottom. I am glad I soaked, rinsed, blanched, washed!

One is bringing new bagged leaves that she soaked and rinsed multiple times daily. It will be interesting to compare and see if there is any difference.

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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Today I picked up my supplies for joong from the local Chinese grocery store. Unfortunately, I couldn't located everything I wanted. I managed to get bamboo leaves, raw peanuts, and salted duck eggs (But no raw eggs, only cooked ones. What's up with that? :huh: ) No chestnuts, no yellow mung beans. They did have green mung beans, though.

So my joong will contain lop cheong, fatty pork, peanuts, dried shrimp, and duck egg yolks. Am I missing anything?

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Today I picked up my supplies for joong from the local Chinese grocery store. Unfortunately, I couldn't located everything I wanted.  I managed to get bamboo leaves, raw peanuts, and salted duck eggs (But no raw eggs, only cooked ones. What's up with that?  :huh: ) No chestnuts, no yellow mung beans. They did have green mung beans, though.

So my joong will contain lop cheong, fatty pork, peanuts, dried shrimp, and duck egg yolks.  Am I missing anything?

shittake mushroom

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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Don't have any pictures ready yet, but I wanted to post this write up I did for Lily, for the joong cook-off as soon as I can to get the rest of you moving!

The big day is over, and Lily, (aka Amandasmom on EG) rose to the occasion with more energy than the Energizer Bunny. :wink:

Lily and family, and my other "family", Leslie and Sija, arrived at noon to share a yummy lunch of jook, century egg, cruellers, chili radish (Lily likes them!), cilantro, and various chili oils and sauces. I used a "year-old laying hen", the best for stock, to make the base. Meat was a bit tough but the flavour was good. Lots of ginger and extra pieces of fresh chicken carcass, 2.5 cups Jasmine rice, 2 hours of simmering, and a bit of thickening with rice flour slurry produced a good lunch to start a busy day of making joong.

My 8 international students arrived at 1 pm via cab. Acouple had slept in, no breakfast, so they cleaned up the jook pot. :laugh:

I don't think Lily or Leslie realized how much work they had ahead of them when they wanted to make 5 dozen joong EACH! :blink: Leslie had an inkling when she called the night before and asked " How many packages of leaves am I supposed to prepare? I must have HUNDREDS!" They both did!

We set about stir-frying the mushrooms, Spanish onions, peanuts, rehydrated shrimp. The sausages and salty fat pork were cut into fingerlings. Lily had the "extravagant" version: crispy BBQ pork, duck yolks, and chestnuts. YUM! By the time the cones of string, leaves, and containers of ingredients were set out, we all took up positions at the 8'x4' table. It was quite a mob scene!

One of the students, Josh from Inner Mongolia, and Ryan from Shanghai have had some experience in making joong, the pyramid shapes. Once I showed them my style, I just let them go on their own. My Japanese student showed me her style, and the other students picked up pretty darn quick. Hunger drives learning. :wink: Besides, I told them they were being graded!

Leslie's daughter, Sija, was at one of my previous joong making sessions, so she was able to guide her Mom a bit. They were proceeding at a good clip. We had a short break enjoying the lemon loaves Leslie baked, along with the homemade wine Lily brought.

This was Lily's first time and she was pretty nervous. At first, she was squeezing her joong so tightly you'd think she was making sausages! :laugh: But, once we got her to relax, she got the hang of it pretty darn quick! I was able to made a few with her, and the students waded in as well once they used up all their makings. I think they both got the 5 dozen AND more that they planned. Must have felt like 12 dozen by the time they finished. With all the joong we made as a group, we probably used about 20 kgs of sweet rice! About 1758 grains were swept up off the floor. Leslie had to take her socks off 'cos the rice made them look like porcupines!

I used a turkey deep fryer gas unit outside to boil one batch and a big canner on my electric stove inside. The fryer works great. I highly recommend it! The ones boiling in the house were ready by 5:30, so we each sampled a small one as we fed the students. We sent them home with a dozen each. While they were waiting for the joong, I had them mix up 3 pounds of ground pork into sui mai. They polished those off in a hurry! Not sure if I got any pictures of those...

It was rather hilarious when the "cab" came to pick them up. There is an air-show happening in Brandon and the cab companies are running shuttles for the spectators. Because all the vans and cabs were tied up, they sent this huge 30 seater tour bus to pick up 8 students! I am sure my neighbors were wondering what was happening at my house to warrant a tour bus picking up people...all foreign looking people at that!

By 7:30, we were sitting down to a feast of joong, BBQ ribs Chinese style, chicken, and gow gai egg drop soup. Lily was pretty wiped, but I think she was happy. She will fill her freezer with joong from her hard day's work. But! She's already talking about "the next session"!

Good for you! Lily! Welcome to my family. :smile:

Hubby and I were too beat last night to process the pictures...I even had to go for a massage by my son Jay to recuperate! Today, we went to the air-show to catch the Snowbirds perform their precision aerobatics. Hubby is the webmaster for the air museum here, one of the sponsors of the show. Hope to have some joong pictures up soon.

With the success of the joong session and the Snowbirds show today, I am proud to be a China Born Canadian!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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The big day is over, and Lily, (aka Amandasmom on EG) rose to the occasion with more energy than the Energizer Bunny.  :wink:

Lily and family, and my other "family", Leslie and Sija, arrived at noon to share a yummy lunch of jook, century egg, cruellers, chili radish (Lily likes them!), cilantro, and various chili oils and sauces. I used a "year-old laying hen", the best for stock, to make the base. Meat was a bit tough but the flavour was good. Lots of ginger and extra pieces of fresh chicken carcass, 2.5 cups Jasmine rice, 2 hours of simmering, and a bit of thickening with rice flour slurry produced a good lunch to start a busy day of making joong.

Good for you! Lily! Welcome to my family. :smile:

Cookin' with Sue-On!

I believe that would be a good name for the newest food show on Food Network in September!!!

WOW, what an experience!!!

I'm still boiling joongzis here! lol This morning I was up at 6 am and had a pot going. Yesterday I had 4 pots going, 2 here and 2 at my MIL's house. Tonight I will have one more pot to cook.

I think with all the excitement I didn't read the grocery list carefully. I ended up soaking 4 double packets of bamboo leaves. Wow, and every leaf got used!!

I am still so tired but very happy!! My freezers will be full and won't need to make any more till next year.

I know I got a LOT more than 5 dozen. I was going to give some to Leslie (since she had different fillings) to bring home for her hubby but she didn't want to take them in case she ended up opening them in error. lol

Thank you so much, Sue-On! You are a wonderful instructor. Very patient and full of humour and knowledge. You made the session so much fun and easy. I think I might be able to handle it on own next year. lol But think it would be more fun to work together with you and Leslie and Sija again.

Amanda and Bruce really enjoyed themselves as they always do when at your house. I really enjoyed the ribs and the pork siu mai. You'll have to share your recipes with me. The ribs were just like what I had when I was a kid! Both Leslie and I agreed that the pork siu mai are a lot better than what we have in our dim sum restaurants!!

The mushrooms and onions really gave it a different flavor which I enjoyed. I also like the idea of less rice and more fillings. I just had 4 of them for lunch (well, they were so tiny!!!) and I sure didn't have that heavy, full feeling that you get from eating the ones made by some of the Guangdong Province people! My cousins sent some over made in that perfect pyramid shape. I haven't tried them yet but I bet they will be full of rice!!!

Now, for next year I think I'll make some changes with fillings - more duck egg yolks, less peanuts, Chinese mushrooms, Spanish onions, more chestnuts, lop cheung with liver inside, might try curing my own pork and maybe even some of the dried shrimp!!!

I'm proud to be part of your family, Sue-On and thank you again!!!

BTW, Bruce's pics were not the greatest. Hope Bill's got some good ones to share. I will send you the ones we have.

Let's talk about our next cooking session??!! ;-)

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I have neve made any joong, but I am a connoisseur and a glutton of them. But doesn't "gan sui", lye water play a role?

Ben,

Gan sui is only used when you make the "sweet joong"...the ones with dow sah inside, and you have to dip in sugar before eating. I don't make these as I don't really care for them. Po-Po always make about 6 for "bai sun" on the festival date: the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar.

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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The mushrooms and onions really gave it a different flavor which I enjoyed.

I have some leftover rice so maybe I'll try making some with mushrooms and onions.

I also like the idea of less rice and more fillings.  I just had 4 of them for lunch (well, they were so tiny!!!) and I sure didn't have that heavy, full feeling that you get from eating the ones made by some of the Guangdong Province people!  My cousins sent some over made in that perfect pyramid shape.  I haven't tried them yet but I bet they will be full of rice!!!

My parents say that you can tell how long people have been in the US by how much filling they put into their joong. When they first arrive, they usually have very little filling and use mostly rice. As the years go by the proportion of meat to rice gets larger and larger. My mom's joong is mostly filling with a little rice, so you can guess how long she's been here!

My own first attempt at making joong was reasonably successful. My attempts at wrapping them weren't so awful, but I wiill definitely want to increase the proportion of filling in future tries.

The rice had a somewhat fluffier texture compared to what I prefer, and I'm wondering exactly why that is. Maybe it was because I soaked the rice overnight, or maybe because I used Thai glutinous rice instead of the Chinese style. I sampled one boiled for 2 1/2 hrs and one boiled for 5 hrs and I found that I preferred the ones boiled for the full 5 hours. I felt that the flavors of the ingredients needed that extra boiling time to really meld together.

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I have neve made any joong, but I am a connoisseur and a glutton of them. But doesn't "gan sui", lye water play a role?

Ben,

Gan sui is only used when you make the "sweet joong"...the ones with dow sah inside, and you have to dip in sugar before eating. I don't make these as I don't really care for them. Po-Po always make about 6 for "bai sun" on the festival date: the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar.

Does anyone actually prefer gan sui joong over the regular ones? Most people I know barely tolerate them if that.

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Cookin' with Sue-On!

What can top that? Next year you need to Cook with Sue-On and Jam with the Hillman Band at the same time! :raz:

... Do a little bit Country (cooking)... Do a little bit Rock'n Roll...

The mushrooms and onions really gave it a different flavor which I enjoyed.  I also like the idea of less rice and more fillings.  I just had 4 of them for lunch (well, they were so tiny!!!)

So, your 5-6 dozen joong may not last past end of July. :laugh::laugh:

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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My parents say that you can tell how long people have been in the US by how much filling they put into their joong.  When they first arrive, they usually have very little filling and use mostly rice.  As the years go by the proportion of meat to rice gets larger and larger.  My mom's joong is mostly filling with a little rice, so you can guess how long she's been here!

While having more filling for your joong may sound good, it's not necessarily a "good thing". Joong needs a "binding agent" to hold all the ingredients together to form the pyramid shape. The "binding agent" is sticky rice. Not enough sticky rice, when you unwrap the bamboo leaves everything falls apart. A perfectly formed joong should standalone as a well form pyramid with nothing falling when you remove the leaves. That's good presentation.

From my experience, you should use no less than 30%-40% (by volume) of sticky rice to form your joong. Sticky rice to mung bean ratio, usually 2:1. Be sure you stuff the sticky rice all around, wrapping the "liu" (other ingredients) inside.

Edited by hzrt8w (log)
W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Found some pictures of some home-made joong. Look pretty good!

http://www.basil.idv.tw/Main/Diary/2004/040622/01.jpg

http://www.basil.idv.tw/Main/Diary/2004/040622/03.jpg

Fillings: Black mushrooms, chestnuts, salty pork, salty duck egg yolk, peanuts.

Edited by hzrt8w (log)
W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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Cookin' with Sue-On!

What can top that? Next year you need to Cook with Sue-On and Jam with the Hillman Band at the same time! :raz:

... Do a little bit Country (cooking)... Do a little bit Rock'n Roll...

Oh, you're cute...very cute... :rolleyes:

Hubby, our son and I just finished a 3 hour practise for our gig on Friday 17...for the German Summerfest, of all things! We will be working alternate sets with an oompapa band. I'll be back on drums for the first time in about 2 year other than for a few jam sessions. Won't be much country; we'll be rockin' in the 50s, 60s, 70s. I've already booked my massage session for Sat.morning. :laugh:

Won't be any joong there, but I'll be enjoying brawurst, schnapps, German beer, etc!

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I made a batch with shitake mushrooms but used green onions because that's what I had in the house. It was great, but it was hard to discern any green onion taste. Next time I'll use vidalias.

Dejah, what kind of seasoning, if any, do you add to your mushrooms and onions?

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I made a batch with shitake mushrooms but used green onions because that's what I had in the house.  It was great, but it was hard to discern any green onion taste.  Next time I'll use vidalias.

Dejah, what kind of seasoning, if any, do you add to your mushrooms and onions?

I stir-fried everything, (except the pork and lapcheung) separately, with salt, pepper and MSG/sugar mix.

I don't "cook" with green onions. I may add them at the last minute, otherwise, they basically disappear in other flavours.

Spanish onions are different. I cut them fairly thick and they maintain their flavour even after boiling or stir-frying.

I also season my rice with salt, MSG and sugar. For every 8 cups of rice, I use 2.5 Chinese soup-spoons of salt and 2.5 ssp. of a mixture of half MSG,half sugar.

Dejah

www.hillmanweb.com

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I have neve made any joong, but I am a connoisseur and a glutton of them. But doesn't "gan sui", lye water play a role?

Ben,

Gan sui is only used when you make the "sweet joong"...the ones with dow sah inside, and you have to dip in sugar before eating. I don't make these as I don't really care for them. Po-Po always make about 6 for "bai sun" on the festival date: the fifth day of the fifth month on the lunar calendar.

Does anyone actually prefer gan sui joong over the regular ones? Most people I know barely tolerate them if that.

I like the gan sui ones for a change of pace after having had the salty sticky rice ones and the salty long grain rice ones. Can't say I have a preference for them though.

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