We Love Dumplings!

 I started making wontons back in high school.  My mom had come across a recipe for "Tex-Mex Wontons" and we made them for pretty  much every party we hosted.  In essence, it was taco meat folded into a wonton skin and fried. They were awesome.


After college, my friend Susannah showed me how she makes her famous dumplings.  You may call them potstickers. Do you know the reason they call them that? If you steam a wonton skin, it becomes soft, pliable and kind of gummy.  So, they will stick to a pot in a heartbeat unless you know what you're doing. So what do you do?  You fry the bottoms of your dumplings in a thin layer of oil until they are crispy.  Then, carefully (very, very carefully) add water to the pan and cover it quickly to steam.  The fried bottom keeps the dumpling from sticking to your pot.  Skip this step and you have one stuck-to-the-pot fiasco.

So, ever since Susannah taught me this technique, I've been making my own.  They are ridiculously easy and so darn tasty.

Tonight's batch started with about a pound of ground pork.  I grated ginger and garlic over the meat, added chopped green onion and chopped water chestnuts.  Then I added just a little soy sauce for flavor and mixed it all up with my hands. 

Then, I placed about 2 teaspoons of meat into the center of my wonton wrapper, wet the edges with water and just twisted them up.  

Like I said, heat a thin layer of oil in a skillet with a good fitting lid.  Fry the bottoms of the dumplings until they are browned and easily lift from the skillet.  Next, add about 1/4 cup of water.  I shield myself with the lid as I add the water to prevent spatter and then cover it quickly.  Let steam a couple of minutes and that's all she wrote.


I like to mix up a dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and some sliced green onion.  Simple and delicious.

Tonight, I served the dumplings with a vegetable fried rice, using peas, carrots, green beans, onions and scrambled egg.

This is a great way to spice up dinner at home and you can make big batches and freeze these little babies for another day. And, just like stir-fry or fried rice, you can make your dumpling filling with pretty much whatever you have available: ground pork, turkey, chicken. Ginger & garlic, green onion, carrot, bean sprouts, you name it.  Don't let this simple dish not make its way into your home.  So very easy and something interesting on the plate.  Enjoy!

The Best Chinese? Make it Yourself!

I've always found Chinese cooking fascinating. Really and truly I guess this applies to most forms of Asian cookery.  I am a die-hard fan of Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean.  But it's not just the plain deliciousness of these cuisines, it's the brilliance of them. 

What I'm referring to is the resourcefulness of this type of cooking.  Think about it.  Let's use the Chinese as the example.  And, I'm not talking about the Americanized Chinese take-out, 24 hour buffet, or mall food court Chinese.  If you've ever read a Chinese cookbook, one thing that stands out is the small amount of each ingredient.  Take fried rice...obviously, you use as much rice as you need to feed the number of people in the family. But, the protein (chicken, shrimp, beef, pork, fish, etc.) is relatively small.  But that's ok, there are then small amounts of various vegetables added next.  This technique likely began and evolved from times when ingredients, money and resources were scarse.  The Chinese figured out that you can make a satisfying, hearty and nutritious main course with a little bit of meat, a little bit of egg, a little bit of cabbage, a little bit of carrot, a little bit of onion, and on and on and on.  The end result is, in this example, a wok full of fried rice packed with veggies, protein and 6 people with full tummies.  Just brilliant.

Today I found myself considering the growing amount of leftovers in my fridge.  I have half a of a pork roast, ham, broccoli, about 1/2 pound of shrimp.  Just those ingredients alone scream some sort of Asian inspired dishes.  So, I popped into Publix for a few staples (a green cabbage, egg roll wrappers, wonton wrappers) so I can use up these fridge inhabitants before they go South on me.  Tonight, it was beef with broccoli (1/2 lb of skirt steak, broccoli, ginger) and shrimp potstickers (my leftover shrimp, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, 5 spice powder and green onion). 

Cute little dumplings waiting to be cooked

 Tomorrow, I'm going to repurpose that pork roast into eggrolls with cabbage, ginger, bamboo shoots & water chestnuts.  The beauty of that plan in that I will have plenty of egg rolls to stash away in the freezer for later!


As a side note, my husband continues to improve from his tonsillectomy from a week ago, so I also used some of the broccoli for a cream of broccoli soup for him.  Not only was he able to eat (and actually taste it!) he went further and ventured into the beef with broccoli and downed some of that too.  Yea!  He's finally able to tolerate eating and getting some fuel into that body.  Good news indeed!