Chinese Dumplings and Cartoons!

"Yummy!!!"

Chinese dumplings are especially important around the Lunar New Year. Chinese people have been making Chinese dumplings on New Year's day for the past 500-600 years in the hopes of having good fortune for the upcoming year. Alice generously invited us over for an evening to share this special Chinese tradition with us.



Alice explaining what ingredients we can use for dumplings. Basically, you can use anything for the stuffing! Ingredients can include beef, chicken, pork, egg, potato, a variety of vegetables, kimchi, cheese.... whatever you like.

We learned that the tricky part of making Chinese dumplings is knowing how to fold the dough so that the stuffing does not fall out during the boiling process. Also, it is important to, as Alice stated, "Make it stand up and look pretty!" Many of our earlier attempts were quite pitiful with the wrong curvature. "They are sleeping," was what Alice would say to our flat dumplings. It was quite exciting when we finally managed to get our dumplings to stand.



Slicing the dough into several pieces. Next, we rolled each piece into small circles.

A standing one amongst the sleepers!

Alice's husband helping us stuff the dumplings.

Laura, Linsey, and I having a blast. Making Chinese dumplings is so much fun!

Laura getting some advice on the folding technique.

A prize Dumpling Chef!

He was so adorable with his fun facial expressions and hand gestures. Alice spoke English very well, but her husband comically expressed to us how English makes him fall asleep! ha ha. He was really fun. I wish I knew Chinese to talk to him more!

The boiling process.

When we came to visit, Shi Shi would sit on her little stool on the corner and think up the most creative cartoons of her cat to give us. They were awesome and so amusing! Her cat, lucky, was the main character in all of them and would often interact with the 'cool cat' and the unlucky cat who was in love with her, but always got the rough end of the deal. Shi Shi gave us about five different cartoons involving everything from electric fences, dynamited roses, costumes, and many other creative things.

Shi Shi excitedly sharing her newest cartoon.

Chinese Chopsticks!

Not metal like the ones we have become accustomed to in South Korea.

Here is a recipe that's simular to the instructions Alice gave us, keeping in mind that the ingredients for the filling can vary.

Chinese Dumplings (Jiaozi)

(makes about 50 dumplings)

Filling:

*1 lb. ground pork (or beef)

*6 T. sesame oil

*2 t. sugar

*0.75 t. salt

*0.25 t. pepper

*0.25 lb. cabbage

*1 t. salt

*0.25 lb. chopped green onions

Skin:*3 c. flour

*0.75 c. cold water

*0.5 c. flour (to prevent sticking during kneading)

soy sauce:

water

vinegar (white or rice)

garlic (fresh, chopped fine, or powdered)

ginger (fresh, chopped fine, or powdered)

small bowl with water for dipping

1. Filling: Mix ground pork, oil, sugar, chop cabbage, salt and pepper until fine. Let sit for 10 minutes; then squeeze out the excess water.

2. Skin: In a bowl, add water to the flour and knead into smooth dough; let it stand for 10 minutes. Roll the dough into a long baton-like roll and cut it into 50 pieces. Use a rolling pin to roll each piece to a thin circle.

3. Combine: Place 1 portion of filling in the center of a dough circle. Fold the circle in half and moisten the edges with water. Use index finger and thumb to bring the sides together. The smooth edge will conform to the decreased length of the pleated edge. Pinch the pleats together then pinch to seal. Place the dumpling on a floured tray and repeat this with the remaining dumplings.

4. Boil: Boil 10 cups of water and add dumplings; gently stir to prevent dumplings from sticking together. Bring to a boil; turn the heat to low and cook for three minutes. When serving, use vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, hot bean paste, etc. as dipping sauces.

5. Serving: Serve the dumplings hot (if you cook them in bamboo baskets you may wish to serve them from it directly at the table) with bowls of soy sauce mixed with red wine vinegar.

The famous cat, Lucky, and her adoring admirer, Laura.