Zongzi

Zongzi are leaf-wrapped sticky-rice parcels with sweet or savoury fillings. Judy Leung recalls her grandmother and aunt making several kinds together, with preparations beginning the night before. Her Cantonese-style family recipe contains glutinous rice, pork belly, peanuts, Chinese sausage and salted duck egg yolk, while she also describes a simpler yellow alkaline-rice variety she knew from childhood.^[1]

In the savoury preparation, the rice and leaves are soaked before wrapping. Rice seasoned with soy sauce and salt forms the base inside a cone of overlapping leaves; pork, peanuts, sausage and yolk are enclosed with more rice. The leaves are folded shut and tied securely, and the parcels are boiled until cooked. The fillings belong to this named family version, rather than a fixed list for every zongzi.^[1]