Bak Chang (Dumplings)

Last weekend was a bak Chang festival. Friends will bring their homemade bak chang to our regular coffee shop to treat us. We do not really celebrate bak chang festival like most chinese household. We will make bak chang as and when we feel like eating them. Bak chang is available in morning market and night market. Unlike olden days we only get to eat bak chang during the festival.

Almost every Sunday a group of friends from Klang will visit Broga for mountain trekking, so we decided to make the Bak Chang to treat them. We do not have the exact measurements of the ingredients. Just prepare the following ingredient using your own estimation.












Soak the dried bamboo leaves and hemp strings overnight. Clean bamboo leaves with a damp cloth, wipe dry and set aside.

The last trip to Kelantan we bought 5kg of Thai Glutinous rice. Just washed and soaked 1kg of glutinous rice, drained and set aside. Prepare some shallots, thinly sliced and some coarsely chopped garlic. Heat 250ml of oil in a wok and fry shallots and garlic until fragrant. Discard the shallot and garlic from wok and uses half portion of the fragrant oil to fry the rice. Add in some salt, pepper, Five Spice Powder and thick soy sauce. Remove the fried rice to a basin.

The following ingredients have to be cleaned and half cooked for the filling:-

400g Belly pork, removed skin
150g Chinese Mushroom, soaked and halved
100g dried prawns, soaked in water and cleaned.
150g dried chestnuts, soaked with 1 tsp of alkaline water for 15 minutes. Blanch for 15 minutes in boiling water twice. Boil them for another 15 minutes over low heat.
20 salted egg yolks, halved them and sprinkle with rose wine and steam for 1 - 2 minutes
300g Black eye peas, boiled with a pinch of salt and drained.


























Uses the other half portion of fragrant oil to saute the belly pork, Chinese mushroom, dried prawn with some seasoning and dish out and separate them.

Take 2 bamboo leaves, arranging them so that one sits on top of the other. Fold into a conical shape, bringing the two ends together. Put 1 tbsp rice into the case, arrange one piece of belly pork, Chinese mushroom, some dried prawn, black eye peas, dried chestnuts, salted eggs. Cover with more rice. Fold the leaves over the rice to form a pyramid shape. Tie with hemp string. Repeat process till all is done. Do not make too big a dumpling otherwise you will have trouble of tying and cooking them later. Traditionally the dumplings are boil in a large pot of water with some salt for more than 3 hours over medium slow fire. We used pressure cooker to boil the dumplings and the cooking time was only 30 minutes. With pressure cooker we can only cook 20 pieces medium size dumplings at one go. When done, hang dumplings to dry.

Have fun and be happy! ♥