Karn sui chung (alkali water dumpling)

chung

I’m back! Full story and picture plus food from Cameron Highlands later. (we cut short our holidays in Cameron)

Tomorrow is the 5th day of the 5th month of the Chinese lunar months. It is also the dumpling festival. The above is a photo of the alkali water or karn sui rice dumpling. Basically, it is glutinious rice soaked in alkali water which gives it the yellow colour and jelly like texture.

In the olden days, grandmothers used to sort out the few grains of normal rice from the glutinous rice. Glutinous rice is white whereas the common type of rice we eat every day is transparent. Therefore, can you imagine the amount of work are done in sorting the rice? The batch of glutinous rice bought from the shop usually have some grains of normal rice in them. When the normal rice is accidentally left in the glutinous rice, the normal rice will result in hard, sandy texture when cook. Hmmm…a lot of hardwork back then. I don’t think people are so finicky nowadays and just ignore the process of sorting rice.

The above dumpling is made by my eldest sister. Making this dumpling takes some skill. One cannot put too much rice when wrapping the dumpling with bamboo leaf or the dumpling will be too hard. When tying the dumpling, it has to be tied with just the right pressure. Otherwise, if too loose, the bamboo leaves may opened up, spoiling the whole dumpling. Or if tied too tight, the dumpling will come out looking curvy at the wrong place. Hmmm…another tough job. Frankly, the dumpling is not the best because I think my sister had put too much alkali water making the dumpling colour too dark. Otherwise, the dumpling will look a shiny yellow.

The brownish syrup on the plate is made from coconut milk, brown sugar and pandan leaves.

More on dumpling festival can be read here.

Posted by on June 10th, 2005 under Festivals & Religious

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No Responses to “Karn sui chung (alkali water dumpling)”

  1. lilian Says:
    June 10th, 2005 at 11:02 pm

    Testing unmoderated comment

  2. diana Says:
    June 11th, 2005 at 5:31 am

    Ooops I didn’t realise it was the dumpling festival till I read your post! Blur me..Its kinda weird how when I’m abroad, I miss Msian food that I would normally seldom touch when I’m back home..the dumplings for example.

    Perhaps its the yummilicious pictures on your blog hehe think I’ll go look for some later today (prob can get from the asian shops here) =)

  3. percolator Says:
    June 11th, 2005 at 7:50 am

    heheh… sure you didn’t cook up a reason to cut short the holiday just to eat this??? lol! Glad you made it. Hit the markets, you surely must be able to find some nice ones.
    I do remember separating the rice grains as a kid when grandma was alive. A lot of work but I didn’t mind. Leftovers after the season were snipped into tiny pieces and popped into red bean soup together with dried mandarin skins from CNY. Sigh.. the lost traditions.

  4. hush4m3 Says:
    June 11th, 2005 at 1:48 pm

    yeeehaaa!!! That means when I’m back to Penang next Wed there’ll still be lots of ‘kee chang’ to eat right???

  5. lilian Says:
    June 11th, 2005 at 3:06 pm

    hush4m3 – Don’t worry, kee chang is available all year round at Pulau Tikus market. Money is all we need. Hahaha. Have a great time back home.

    Percolator – The first thing I saw in Tringkap is bak chang! We use the Simpang Pulai road and hence reach the top of Cameron first. So, grabbed 4 bak chang before we proceed to check in the hotel. Hahaha, that’s gluttony at its peak.

  6. babe_kl Says:
    June 13th, 2005 at 9:39 am

    my mom just gave me some last nite cos its all sold out at the pasar! darn! i lup kan sui chung.

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