had a lil foray into making bamboo leaf wrapped dumplings (bak chang) yesterday. a lot of work wei! had to do some soaking and some preparation the nite before. boil and soak the bamboo leaves, soak the glutinous rice, soak the chestnuts, soak the mung beans. had to soak the mushrooms and dried oysters and dried prawns to cook with the chicken filling.

i started all those soaking at about 11pm (being the night owl that i am), and my dining table was topped with all these big bowls and lil bowls at the end of the night.

i roped my mom in to help me wrap the dang things the next day. never done this on my own before. had only sibuk-sibuk with the wrapping a wee bit when i was a kid.

12.30pm

me: mom, can come over at 2 o'clock ah?

mom: can, can. gives me a bit of time to pittle pottle around the house beforehand

1.40pm

me: shit! forgot the prepare the salted eggs!

*quickly started scraping the black stuff off the eggs and cracking open and halving the yolks*

2.25pm

phone rings. i quickly washed my hands clean of the egg white and all the gunk and ran to answe the phone.

hubster: harro, just finished lunch. might be leaving genting soon

me: ok

back to the salted egg yolks. doorbell rings at 2.30pm.

me: aiyoh, thought you coming at 2pm

mom: had to separate some dried prawns into packets for you. forgot the time

my mom is bad at time keeping and she loves to do things last minute. 2 traits which i really hate in anyone.

me: i forgot to prepare the salted egg yolk lah

mom: heh heh heh. see lah, hurry me some more. you haven't even finished your prep

me: one only mah. you go sit in front. get you when i'm done here. there, there, look. that's our new microwave

mom: yours looks smaller than mine

me: yeah lah. you chose the big one. everything oso want bigger. kiasu

mom: no lah, sometimes got big dishes, cannot fit into smaller microwave

me, *muttering under my breath*: yeah, right

me: come, let's start. if not, 10 o'clock also cannot eat yet

mom: so long never wrap, i oso dunno how it's gonna turn out. wah! you so fast, wrap quite nice oso. you got wrap before ah?

me: no lah, only when i was a kid playing around when you guys were making this

mom: i remember when i was pregnant with you, we wrap this in kung-kung's place, all of us squatting in the small kitchen

me: eh, don't forget the salted eggs! must put then only nice to eat

mom: got so many fillings, i oso forget what i've put inside

me: must have system one. go left to right lah

mom: no, no, no. the salted eggs must put in the middle one

me: ok, then we rearrange the bowls lah

mom: aiyoh! this leaf torn lah! *rice scatters on the floor*

me: leave it! i'll clean it up

mom: must clean properly, if not then step step the rice all over the place

me: yeah lah! you must be more careful, try to fold the leaves over the sink

mom: ok, ok

me: water boil oredi, can put the first bunch in

mom: how many hours must boil?

me: the recipe says 2 hours

mom: i don't think enough lah. at least 3 hours. better test and see afterwards, scared not cooked

me: ok, ok.

it went on for the next couple of hours. bantering and wrapping. it turns out that it needed more than 2 hours of boiling. in fact, the dang things boiled for over 3 hours. mom left after the wrapping was done. hubster ferried the dumplings over in the evening. the dumplings turned out quite nicely, no bursting. only thing is, the rice needs a lil bit more salt. well done for a first attempt. don't think i'll do this again anytime soon. so much work!