Next, Fried Dumplings!!!

After I'd wrapped and boiled about 400 dumplings since my last blog entry, I decided yesterday to try baking it. It took about 40 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit and the skins didn't crisp very well, so today, I tried them fried with extra virgin olive oil. And what a wonderful outcome I experienced!

I had changed the recipe slightly as I ran out of meat and prawns in my refridgerator and replaced them with siken tofu, cream cheese and finely shredded, sharp cheddar cheese. It was wonderful! The changes in the recipe went extremely well with the frying method.

I didn't use too much oil, just enough to coat the frying pan and with maybe 1mm of depth. The dumplings fried a golden brown beautifully within minutes of flipping them about. Not wanting the excess oil to go to waste, I drizzled them over my organic, mixed herb salad.

In the picture, I have also baked some chicken to go with the meal. The drumsticks were simply marinated with salt, pepper, and barbeque sauce for about 5 minutes. Nothing too complicated. They were then roasted in the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes.

As for the salad, I simply tossed together a dessert spoon of minced garlic, 1 tablespoon of raw onions chopped and minced, and used an Asian ginger dressing over 3 handfuls of organic herb salad in a mixing bowl. Easy fixing, really!

Dumpling Noodles!!!

It all started when I had a sudden craving for dumplings one fine day about two weeks ago, which happened to be sometime over the Chinese New Year 2008. The thought of how a big, juicy dumpling would burst in my mouth and tease my palate made me almost obsessed to re-create these here in Savannah, where good and authentic Chinese cuisine is almost impossible to find. So I think between 7 Feb 08 (which was the eve of Chinese New Year in 2008) and today, 5 Mar 08, I must have wrapped more than 400 dumplings!

With every session of wrapping these delectable parcels, the art was perfected and the taste refined. Here's the final approved recipe.

Equipment:

1. Chopping board
2. Chopper or chef knife
3. Big mixing bowl
4. Mixing spoon
   
5. Saucepan
6. Ladle
   

Ingredients:

1. Prawns -- 20 uncooked, peeled and deveined (or half the amount of the meat) [omit this ingredient if you wanna go vegetarian]
   
2. Ground pork/chicken/turkey/beef (it works with every type of meat or try tofu if you wanna go vegetarian) -- 2lbs
   
3. Carrots --- about 10 baby carrots (the type that's washed and ready to eat)
4. Chinese mushrooms --- about 5 big ones
5. English button mushrooms --- about 5, chopped and minced
   
6. Minced garlic ---- about 1 tablespoon
7. Onions --- 1 whole yellow onion chopped and minced
8. Cilantro --- about 8 tablespoons of it chopped and minced (or as much as you like!!!)
   
9. Wonton skins --- enough to wrap 100
   
10. Sesame Oil --- 1 tablespoon
    
11. Light soy sauce --- 3 tablespoons
12. Five spices --- 4 tablespoons
13. Salt --- 3 teaspoons
14. Black pepper --- 2 teaspoons
    
15. Egg --- 1 large egg
    

Method:
First, soak the Chinese mushrooms until soft. Meanwhile, you can get to work mincing the button mushrooms, cilantro, carrots, shelling the prawns and dicing them up. When the Chinese mushrooms are manageable, cut them up to small pieces and mix all the ingredients together in your mixing bowl, including your seasonings.

The cilantro is a key ingredient without which will make your dumplings taste different.

Next, place a wonton skin on your palm and put a spoon of the mixture on it. Then envelope the skin over the mixture, forming a little parcel without leaks if possible. You can make them to form any shape you want, as long as the skins are able to close over with some water or egg-white.

Finally, pop the parcels into a pot of boiling water and cook for no more than 5 minutes. They cook really fast and if you don't fish them out in time, you might start seeing the skins slip off the meats!

Final result: Beautiful juicy dumplings. In the picture, I have boiled some rahmen and conjured a sauce for the noodles with 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 dessert spoon of ketchup and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil. For roughage, I included some boiled lettuce. And not to waste the water that was used to cook the dumplings and lettuce, I added some silk tofu, button mushrooms and half an onion to it and made soup out of it!

Note: You don't have to wrap all the fillings at one time. You can refridgerate the leftovers and have them ready to be wrapped the next time you want dumpling noodles. By then, with the food already processed, your cooking time will be less than 30 minutes!