I love savory Zongzi too! The wrapping does take a bit practice. Try to find wider leaves so you can use one piece at a time. It makes wrapping much easier. Glad to hear the video is helpful 🙂

Hi Steve, I’m sorry the spelling on this page confused you. I’m from Beijing and we speak Mandarin there. So for me, the romanization system I use (pinyin) has the following spellings: Zongzi (it does pronounce like z in Zombie), Doufu, Kongfu, and Sichuan (instead of szechuan). Every time I write for the blog, I’ll go to Wikipedia and Google, to check the common spellings. So I use tofu and chow mein (instead of chao mian) because they’re identified as the most common. As for this recipe, Wikipedia primarily refers to the item as Zongzi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zongzi). That’s the reason I chose this spelling. It does appear to be pronounced Joong in Cantonese, which is close to the one you suggested.
The English pronunciation of many Chinese words came from Hong Kong and Taiwan, but the dialect sounds like a foreign language to people who speak Mandarin. So sometimes it’s very difficult (or even arbitrary) to determine which is the most acceptable or recognizable way to spell something.

Hey Kara, I’m so glad I posted this in time! The banana leaves should work well because southern zongzi is wrapped with them. I never tried them before, so I don’t know whether the finished zongzi has the same nice aroma as the one that is made with bamboo or reed leaves.
If you can actually find reed or bamboo leaves (which will be great), definitely try them out. It’ll be worth the trip to the store.
If you have enough time, you could try both the banana and reed/bamboo ones. And it’ll be so interesting to know the comparison between both types of leaves!
Let me how’s the cooking goes 🙂