Jianning Cudweed Dumplings 建宁暖菇包

Jianning Cudweed Dumplings (建宁暖菇包) are steamed, filled dumplings made with fresh cudweed (鼠曲草), a spring speciality of Jianning County (建宁县), Sanming (三明), Fujian. The Jianning County Media Centre (建宁县融媒体中心) calls the cake nuangu ci (暖菇糍), the county's name for the Qingming cake (清明果), and says every bite of it tastes of spring.

Ingredients

The key ingredient is cudweed; the Taining county government gives nuangu (暖菇) as a local name for the plant. The plant sprouts in early spring and is at its most tender just before the Qingming festival, which is why it is also called 'Qingming greens' (清明菜). The Jianning media centre notes that the late-Qing book Minchan Luyi (闽产录异), a record of products of Fujian and Taiwan, already lists it.

How it is made

Freshly picked cudweed is washed and blanched, then worked into glutinous rice flour, and in one description wheat flour as well. Rubbing and pressing brings out the fragrant juice, and steady kneading turns the dough soft and springy. It is divided into small pieces, rolled out, filled with a stir-fried filling and wrapped, then steamed for a little over ten minutes. Fillings can be savoury or sweet.

Flavour and texture

Steaming darkens the colour of the dumplings, which the media centre likens to distant blue-green hills. They smell fresh and fragrant and are soft and sticky to bite. In Jianning they carry wishes for completeness and for rising fortune (蒸蒸日上, 'rising day by day').

Where it comes from

The name nuangu bao appears on the Taining County (泰宁县) government site, which describes nuangu bao as a paste of rice and cudweed, shaped into a cup, filled with cooked filling, sealed like a jiaozi or bun and steamed. Its two fillings are fresh bamboo shoots with cured pork and mushrooms, or sweetened mashed red beans. There the cakes are made on the spring sacrificial day (春社) as offerings to the earth god.