What I Ate: June 8, 2009

Posted 8 June, 2009 at 10:39pm by Michael Chu

(Filed under: Food, What I Ate)

8 comments to What I Ate: June 8, 2009

Bobbi, June 9th, 2009 at 12:02 am:

• Michael, can you please, please get the pork and chive dumpling recipe from your dad and post it ? Please, and soon? I love dumplings and I love chive and pork. The other dishes looked good and I bet they were tasty; I am just a dumpling lover and honed in on that.

Bobbi, June 9th, 2009 at 12:06 am:

• Whoops; read wrong; Tina's parents and your fathers camera!!!!! but again….recipe

Don, June 9th, 2009 at 1:34 pm:

• Is the preserved egg the black items with the tofu? Is it very salty?

Michael Chu, June 9th, 2009 at 4:03 pm:

• The pidan are the black wedges. It's had to describe the taste. They are slightly salty, but not very much - usually you put some soy sauce on it. The texture of the whites (now black) is like gelatin and the yolks are creamy. The flavor is a little alkaline (you know, how masa tastes different than corn meal; kind of like that)… I really can't figure out how to compare it to anything else.

  I just broke open another one and tasted it. Tina tasted it as well. We can't figure out any way to describe the yolk. It's like a stinky creamy cheese.

Frank, June 10th, 2009 at 6:39 am:

• I've been lookin through yout website for some time now. nice receipes. WIth all the eating out your doing how is the weight, just kidding?

  Regards
  Frank DeFilippi

Michael Chu, June 10th, 2009 at 10:16 am:

• Last time I checked, I lost weight since moving to Texas. A couple weeks ago I registered around 150 pounds (with clothes, shoes, and electronic accessories still on).

Tina Jiang, June 22nd, 2009 at 11:53 am:

• Bobbi, sorry for the late reply. I tried to get the dumpling recipe from my parents but it turned out to be somewhat difficult since they do it from experience and don't have anything written down. I did however, find a pot sticker (pan fried dumplings) recipe in one of my Chinese cookbooks, Irene Kuo's "The Key To Chinese Cooking". I have not tried this particular recipe myself but I have made a few other dishes following recipes from her book and they turned out pretty good. This recipe makes 28 very small dumplings. I modified the recipe to use chives instead of nappa cabbage and provided instructions for boiling in place of pan frying. Hope this helps.

  Making the dough (it might be easier to buy pre-made dumpling skins/wrappers from Asian grocery stores):
  2 cups all-purpose flour
  1 cup boiling water

  Pour the boiling water into the flour while stirring until mixed. Let it rest while you make the filing.

  Making the filing:
  1/2 pound ground pork
  1 1/2 tablespoons light soy sauce
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1/8 teaspoon sugar
  sprinklings black pepper
  2 quarter-sized slices peeled ginger, minced
  1 small whole green onion/scallion, finely chopped
  1 cup finely chopped nappa cabbage (you can use chives instead)
  1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup water
  1 tablespoon sesame oil

  Add the soy sauce, salt, sugar, black pepper, ginger, green onions/scallions, chives, dissolved corn starch, and sesame oil to the ground pork and stir until ingredients are well mixed and the mixture is smooth.

  Making dumpling skins/wrappers:
  Dust cutting board with flour and knead dough on it for 5 min until it's smooth. Cover with damp cloth and let rest for 30 minutes. Then knead again for another 3 minutes (dust with flour when necessary). Shape dough with your hand into a long sausage about 1 inch in diameter and 28 inches long, then cut into 28 pieces. Dust the cut surfaces of the pieces with flour so they don't stick to the board or your hand. Flatten the pieces with your palm and roll them into 3 1/4 inch rounds. Keep them under the damp cloth as you shape and fill each wrapper so they don't dry out.

  Making the dumplings:
  Put 1 teaspoon of filing (adjust as necessary) into a wrapper, fold one side of the wrapper over the other side and pinch together in the middle. Pinch the rest of the edges together so no gap exists between the two layers. Normally this is done with pleats so the finished dumpling has a half moon shape when finished. Space out the dumplings on a tray dusted with flour so they don't stick to the tray or each other.

  Cooking the dumplings:
  Boil a large pot of water (make sure the dumplings are not overly crowded). Put the dumplings in and stir gently to prevent sticking. Cook for 5 minutes (check for doneness) and take them out with a skimmer. Cool for a few minutes before serving.

  Dipping sauce (personal preference):
  vinegar and or soy sauce with minced garlic or ginger

  Good luck making your own pork and chive dumplings!

Tina Jiang, June 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm:

• Here's a link to the pictures Michael took a few months ago of my parents making dumplings. Hopefully this will help to visualize some of the steps.
  http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blog/index.php/2008/12/christmas-dumplings/