Sunday, August 24, 2008

Just the other day i was tasked by my mum to get spring onions and me being vegetable-illiterate bought chinese chives aka gu chai instead. So I had to think of how to get rid of them. Since, throwing them away is too wasteful, no one I knew would want it if i gave it away, the only other alternative was to 'cook them away'. What would dish would include gu chai?
What came to mind were stir fried/bbq with garlic, like those i ate at the roadside stalls in china and gu chai kuei. I scoured the internet for recipes and somehow stir fried seems boring and gu chai kuei is too ingredient intensive. Finally i hit home run while i was eating shui jiao at the hawker centre.
So i made dumplings/shui jiao~

I bought:
-Dumpling skins (just in case my self-made skin didn't succeed)
-minced meat
-ginger

I didn't have to buy:
-gu chai
-spring onion
-prawn (since i've seen this in the freezer for ages I decided to make half of them with prawn filling, though i didn't eat any)
-tapioca flour(the original recipes state cornstarch which can be made from cornflour to give it a more sticky paste but i guess tapioca flour works as well
-plain flour
-sesame oil
-soya sauce
-salt and pepper

1. Chop spring onions, ginger, gu chai, ginger, prawn (at this point I must complain, that the frozen prawn cut my fourth finger once i took it out. nastynasty things another reason for me to not like them)
2. mix chopped stuff into bowl together with minced meat sesame oil, soya sauce, salt, pepper (i used my hands, careful to keep my injured fourth finger in 'lotus flower' position, lian2 hua1 zi2)
3. cover and put in fridge till ready to use

The above sounds simple enough, but it's the hell of a lot of chopping and washing to do, and the deshelling and deveining of the prawn took time.

Next to make the Dumpling Skin:
I couldn't find many recipes for the home-made dumpling skins, usually they use pre-made ones, or they jus provided photos not exact measurements, so I did my own 'agaration'.
4. Pour plain flour (1 cup) in bowl, add warm water (1/4 cup)and a pinch of salt
5. Stir till all flour has become sticky paste (at this point slowly add abit of water if it's too dry or too wet add more flour, for me i really added alot of flour)
6. Knead dough till you get desired texture (HAh! i dunnow wads the correct texture so i image what it shld feel like turned out pretty ok)

notice the 2 portions of meat, with and w/o prawns~

7. Roll flour into cylindrical rolls and tear into tiny portions (each portion would be one skin)
8. Roll portion into ball and flatten
9. use rolling pin to roll flat (many recipes suggest that the middle of the skin shld be slightly thicker to hold the ingredients in, that sorta rolling takes special technique which i attempt but failed to master)
10. using chopsticks add filling onto skin
11. crimp sides (my crimping is super ugly, the only one that turned out the nicest was the first one i made and then my patience went downhill)

My mum's handywork on the left and mine on the right

12. throw into boiling water with salt
13. when it floats it's ready~

Other ways of cooking it are steaming and deep frying or making it gyoza style/pot-stickers, pan fried on it's bum and steamed on the top. I wanted to try that so I selected 4 dumplings which were wrapped the prettiest so what you do is
12a. Heat oil in non sick pan
13b. Put dumplings on them
14. When base is brown add water (this is the point where your pan cover should be shielding your face because hot oil + water = splutter and the pancover serves a duel purpose)
15. Cover pan to steam dumplings (i didn't know how much water to add, plus with the flurry of having oil spluttering all over i overdid with the water so I had to pour alot of it out once i estimated that the dumplings should be cooked)
16. when water all the water is evaporated remove cover, let dumpling dry out. tadah~


As you can see i overdid the browning xP but they taste awesome!
the yellow ones are the pre-made skins i bought. I prefer the taste of the white skins though they don't have the smell of 'ghee', not the roti prata ghee, but this is how i know it in dialect.
My mum also cooked cai xin soup with ikan billis to go along with the dumplings. =) I read that dumplings are a traditional dish during cny, when the family gathers round to make them together. How nice, though it's not cny i spent some quality time with my mum.

Labels: cooking escapades, Feeling blessed

by tab at 10:53 PM |