A Chinese New Year Dish - Dumplings.

Hi Pals,

I have told some of you that MY mummy made Dumplings ( 锅贴 : Guo Tie)for us on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year.


In China, its a tradition for some Chinese family to have dumplings when they are having reunion dinner. Some family even put a coin into ONE of the dumplings while making them. Whoever get the dumplings with the coin in it is believe to have good luck for the whole year. Its fun isn't it? But too bad that we dun play this game at home.

The followings are the pictures taken while mummy was making the dumplings.

This is the fillings for the dumplings.
It consist of 1)Minced pork, 2)Minced prawn, 3) Chopped water chestnuts, 4) Chopped carrots, 5) Chopped Xiao Bai Cai (a green leafy vegetables that we do not know what its called in english. Please click HERE to see what it look like)

This is the dough for the skin of the dumplings. It is made by mixing flour with hot water. Knead it till it form a smooth, non-sticky dough, then wrap it in a plastic bag and let it stand for 20 mins.
An easy way to make sure that your dumplings are of the same size, you just need to roll out the dough till its 1mm thick then cut it with a round pastry cutter.

This is a video clip to show you how the dumplings are made. Look closely to see how the skin is folded to form the lines on the dumplings.

This is how the dumpling supposed to look like.

When we have made enough dumplings, heat a pan with a little cooking oil.

When you put the dumplings on the frying pan, make sure they don't stick together.
Add enough water to cover 1/4 of the dumplings then cover the frying pan to let the dumpling to be pan fried and steamed at the same time.

When the dumplings are cooked, you will observe that the colour of the dumplings skin changes and the water should have dried up thoroughly

This is how the dumplings look like when it cooked and ready to be eaten. We will dip it in a sauce made of dark vinegar and shredded ginger. If you want to, you can add some chinese cooking wine into the sauce to increase its flavour.

Next, I am going to show you a dessert we had.
Jie jie made this yesterday.

Its made by boiling Ginkgo nuts, Barley and Dried bean curd. Rock sugar is added when the ingredients are cooked.

How would you like to have the above foodie for lunch/dinner?

Luv
Snowball