My missus can’t make chang (meat dumpling). Ummm…let me rephrase that! She can’t tie chang very well – her previous attempts did not turn out too badly but the dumplings came out in all shapes and sizes. I guess she did not have much practice because my late mother-in-law would do it all by herself and my missus would taste those commercially-made and sold ones and would, without fail, declare outright that her mum’s were the best!
However, they only made the Chinese Hokkien chang unlike my late mum and others in my family – they would make the nyonya variety with ketumbar (coriander seeds). We can’t get those here in Sibu but I would get them every year from my good friend/ex-colleague, Richard or from my uncle’s wife in Kuching or buy those available there. My brother used to buy the ones from Katong in Singapore too when in transit everytime he came home.
Well, it so happened that the other day, I saw my missus busy making chang in the kitchen and much to my surprise, she was making those nyonya ones and they turned out really well…
…perfect cones, all of them…
I tried one…
…and I noticed that it was half white and the other half was a light shade of blue. Obviously, she had made use of the butterfly pea flowers now growing abundantly along the back fence of my garden and we would harvest the flowers every morning (and some of my mint leaves too) to brew a pot of the delightful tea to drink.
I did ask her why she made them like that and she said that she saw people doing it that way in some instructional video. So far, I’ve seen those not dyed at all or dyed completely blue or just stained lightly here and there. Of course, it did not matter one bit as it was just the colour and did not affect the taste in any way, unlike the little piece of pandan that she put inside – the fragrance of the leaf sure brought the taste to a whole new level.
Yes, the meat filling…
…was great, a little sweet with the addition of the dried winter melon (冬瓜糖) and yes, I must say that I sure did enjoy eating those changs that my missus made a lot! Yum yummm!!!
Of course it was a whole lot of work and those of us who do not know how to tie those dumplings would take the easy way out and cook it in a baking tray, the glutinous rice with a layer of the filling in between. I told her that she could cook the glutinous rice and the filling the way her mum would do it for her Hokkien chang (yes, my missus does not have a problem with that, just the tying) and cook it in aluminum foil cups like Lo Mai Gai (糯米鸡). That way, she would not have to go through the tedious task of tying the dumplings.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 