How to buy, boil, fry and enjoy Zongzi | Chinese Cooking Demystified

Zongzi, a.k.a. "glutinous rice dumplings", a.k.a. "Chinese tamales"! We already showed y'all how to make these in an earlier video, so for this year's Dragonboat Festival we wanted to give you a bit of a 'supermarket zongzi' buying and prepping guide.

0:00 - Introduction to Zongzi
0:48 - Why do people eat Zongzi for Dragon Boat?
2:06 - Should you make Zongzi, or buy them?
2:42 - Types of Zongzi at the Supermarket
5:00 - How to Boil Zongzi
5:50 - How to Eat Zongzi
6:24 - How to Panfry Zongzi, Two Methods
9:01 - Sauce to Dip?
9:39 - Which frying method for which Zongzi?

TABLE OF ZONGZI BOILING TIMES (FOR REFERENCE)

Generally speaking, Zongzi packages will come with boiling times on them. When in doubt, go with the package. This table is just in case the package doesn't have instructions, or if you can't read them for whatever reason.

Weight | Shrink-wrapped/fresh | Frozen

100g | 10 minutes | 15 minutes
150g | 12 minutes | 20 minutes
200g | 15 minutes | 25 minutes
250g | 20 minutes | 25 minutes
300g | 25 minutes | 30 minutes
500g | 30 minutes | 40 minutes

note: Do *not* let frozen Zongzi thaw before cooking. They will become a gloopy mess.

HOW TO PANFRY

If working from frozen Zongzi, boil the Zongzi first (around half the time you'd boil otherwise). If using fresh or shrink-wrapped zongzi, no need to pre-cook: just charge forward straight.

Smush-fry method:

Fry the zongzi over a medium flame with ~1 tbsp oil. Optionally slice the Zongzi in half. Smush the zongzi until a lid can cover it, ~2-3 minutes. Once a lid can cover, cook with the lid on, periodically continuing to smush and shape the zongzi into a pancake, ~5 minutes. Optionally crack an egg over the zongzi, and once the egg's formed, flip. Cook for ~5 minutes until everything is crispy and golden brown.

Slice & Fry method:

Slice the Zongzi into 1-2 inch pieces with the string that it came wrapped with, then fry the zongzi pieces over a medium flame with ~1 tbsp oil. For the first five minutes of cooking, keep the lid covered to help soften the rice. After that point, flip the pieces occasionally. After about ~20 minutes in total of frying, the Zongzi should be nice an golden brown.

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Footage of the family celebrating Dragon Boat is from the super wholesome channel 农村小遥 (I believe they're from up in the Northeast?). Check out the whole video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZh3aJwMfH8

Also check out the whole video of Dragon Boat racing from Vassili Chui, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC1QgS6DK5g

And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
http://www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified

Outro Music: คิดถึงคุณจัง by ธานินทร์ อินทรเทพ
Found via My Analog Journal (great channel): https://youtu.be/GHaL5H-VYRg