Stuffed Rice Bundles (Banh Tet)

These Vietnamese cakes are traditionally eaten around the lunar new year.  Why the cookbook put them in September is unclear.  Anyway, they are made with raw sticky rice mixed with coconut milk, cooked black-eyed peas and scallions, wrapped around mashed mung beans and pork seasoned with fish sauce.  They were supposed to be wrapped in bamboo leaves, but since I was fresh out of bamboo leaves, I used parchment paper and foil.  Finally, the wrapped dumplings are submerged in boiling water for a whopping two and a half hours.  Poor things.
Sprinkled with a little soy sauce, these dumplings contain a yummy variety of flavors and textures - a feature of Vietnamese food I have come to adore.