What’s Going On?

Last night, my friend invited me to help make some Chinese tamales, otherwise known as “doong” or “joong” depending on dialect. What is a Chinese tamale? Well in short terms it is a food that is made up of short grain (gluttonous rice), meat, and whatever else you would like to add to it, all wrapped in banana/bamboo/lotus leaves and tied up with string. It is then boiled or steamed for about 1.5 hours.

How we went about making the tamales was first to boil and soak the banana leaves  for about 20 minutes to soften up the leaf good enough so that they can become soft and pliable in the wrapping process. Then by grabbing two leaves, we filled up the leaves with two or three tablespoons full of uncooked gluttonous rice which had been seasoned and we placed on top of it marinated pork and Chinese sausage. On top of the meat, we then covered it with about another two to three tablespoons of rice, just enough to have the meat entirely covered. Finally we folded in the sides of the leaf and wrapped the whole entire tamale with the remaining excess part of the banana leaf and tied it all together with some string. We boiled the Chinese tamales for about 1.5 hours and after cooking set them out to cool off.

In totality, I think we made about 60 or so Chinese tamales. They were just great. Excess tamales that could not be eaten will be stored in the freezer where at a later date they can be reboiled and then eaten. My favorite thing to do with “doong” is to cut it up in to half an inch slices and pan fry them in some oil. Pan frying it will allow the outside to become crispy and crunchy while the inside still remains soft and chewy. Great comfort food and I’m glad that after so many years of wanting to make it, I’ve had the opportunity to actually get it done. I now hope to do this again and put some crazy amount of ingredients in my “doong” the next time I make it.