Technique: Reheating a Chinese Glutinous Rice Tamale (粽, Zung3)

This posting was updated on 07 Feb 2016. The title and opening text were changed.

This is not a recipe, but a technique to reheat a Chinese glutinous rice tamale. I’ve also heard it referred to in English as a dumpling, but it’s too huge to be called a dumpling!

So what is a Chinese glutinous rice tamale? Unlike the tamale you’re probably familiar with consisting of corn husks wrapped around masa with a meat filling, the Cantonese version consists of bamboo leaves wrapped around glutinous (sticky) rice with pork belly meat, Cantonese pork sausage, and a salted duck egg yolk. In addition, you can also find mung beans, peanuts, chestnut, dried shrimp, Shiitake mushrooms, and other goodies in the tamale, depending upon the source (usually homemade). There are many other Chinese regional tamale variations, as well as sweet versions. Whether or not you’re lucky enough to know someone who makes the tamales themselves (homemade always being the best) or if you buy the tamales at an Asian market, you’ll need to reheat them. Here’s a (relatively) fast method to do so.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

1	1	Chinese Glutinous Rice Tamale (粽, zung3)
		Boiling water

 

Equipment

		Aluminum foil
		Covered heat proof microwave safe bowl

 

Foil Wrapped Tamale in Boiling Water

Instructions

1. The best way to eat a tamale is after it has been homemade and freshly steamed (after many hours). Barring that fortunate circumstance, a homemade or store bought tamale needs to be reheated.
2. The traditional method is to steam the tamale again for 45 to 60 minutes, but you have take out your steamer, boil the water, and then wait for up to 60 minutes before eating the tamale.
3. I’ve used the microwave to reheat the tamale in a

   

   Reheated Tamale Ready To Eat

   microwave and heatproof covered bowl with boiling water. You only need around 20 minutes to reheat the tamale using the microwave, which is an improvement over 60 minutes using the steamer. However, reheating with the microwave causes a crust to be formed on the surface of the tamale. Even if the tamale is fully submerged in the water and the tamale is turned midway through the cooking period, the crust still forms.
4. So the trick is to wrap the tamale in aluminum foil before pouring boiling water over it in a microwave and heat proof covered bowl. The aluminum foil reflects the microwave radiation so that the tamale reheats using only the heat of the boiling water, so no crust forms. You also don’t need to have the microwave blasting the dish at full power, with my microwave, 50% power is sufficient. So in the time it takes to boil water and then another 20 minutes in the microwave at 50% power, you have a reheated tamale ready to eat.