饺子

My little family has grown fond of my homemade 'jiaozi' or chinese dumplings. Over the past 2 weeks, I'd made it 3 times. Hubby and I can gobble up about 18 jiaozi each for dinner while KK can do about 4 - 6. I'm not boasting, but they are very yummy. The meat is fragrant and very tender. I tried to make minced pork balls or wantons before but the meat is always tough. Hubby asked me what I added this time that makes it so good and I don't know why. The seasonings are all pretty normal stuff that most chinese families use.







It really started when KK mentioned about his classmate having that for lunch and asked me what it is. I asked him if he would like to have it and when he nodded, the 'filial mother' in me started looking for its recipe.

Though I've eaten jiaozi before and quite like them, I've never ever made one myself. The recipe wasn't hard to find really and it turned out really good even on my first attempt. Ok, I took the short cut of using ready-made dumpling skin. But at only $1.70 for 500gm of consistent thickness and size, really, I shouldn't bother. Besides the texture is quite good.

Here's the recipe for the fillings:


Ingredients

• 350 - 450g minced pork
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine
• 1 tbsp Light soya sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• some pepper
• a bit of chives, coriander and spring onion (all chopped up)
• 1/4 small cabbage (chopped to small bits)

Method:

Preparing
Mince/chop and mix everything up. If you have a food processor, great. If not, happy chopping. Allow the meat mixture to sit and marinade in the seasoning while you chop up the veg. (Make sure the veg are not too wet and apparantly when mixing, stirring the meat slowly and in the same direction helps not to break the fibre that holds the meat together.)



Wrapping
Put a lump of minced meat in the center of the skin and fold over. Wet the edge with a little water. Fold pleats on the edge starting from right to left. Make sure you press it hard to seal the pastry together. Practice makes perfect, the more you wrap, the prettier it'll become.



Boiling

• Put a large pot of water to boil. Fill up the pot only about 50% full, leaving room for adding of more water as you cook.
• Put gently dumplings into boiling water. Try to stir them around initially to prevent them from sinking and sticking to the bottom of the pot. When the water boils again, pour in 1 cup of water and cover. When it boils the 2nd time, pour in another cup of water and cover. When it boils for the 3rd time and the dumplings float up, they are done. (You have to do this ritual to make sure the dumplings are properly cooked. Pouring in cold water each time prevents the dumpling from 'exploding' as it cooks.)

Eating

• Taste best when eaten hot!
• Eat them plain or with whatever sauce you like - soya sauce, vinegar, chilli, or those ready-mix dumpling sauce from Taiwan.