Dumpling making is a labor of love. It takes a lot of work to make dumplings from scratch, but the results are so worth it. Every ingredient has to be chopped finely, each wrapper rolled out, and each dumpling formed by hand. There are shortcuts, such as buying dumpling skins or frozen dumpling ready to be cooked, but I much prefer to make them myself. If there's a hard way to do something, I'll be likely to try it.
Last Sunday, my mom and I spent the whole morning making a large batch of Chicken, Pork, and Chinese Chive Dumplings. We boiled some and made some into pot stickers for lunch, and froze the rest for easy meals in the future. The Chinese chives we used came straight from our garden, freshly cut that morning. In Chinese, they are called jiu cai (geeyou tsai). The smell is incredibly fragrant and onion-y, and are delicious in dumplings, savoury pancakes, or simply stir fried.
My mom picked a huge basket full, and carefully picked through them before giving them a thorough wash. It looks like a huge pile of grass, but trust me, it's a lot tastier than grass.
Last Sunday, my mom and I spent the whole morning making a large batch of Chicken, Pork, and Chinese Chive Dumplings. We boiled some and made some into pot stickers for lunch, and froze the rest for easy meals in the future. The Chinese chives we used came straight from our garden, freshly cut that morning. In Chinese, they are called jiu cai (geeyou tsai). The smell is incredibly fragrant and onion-y, and are delicious in dumplings, savoury pancakes, or simply stir fried.
My mom picked a huge basket full, and carefully picked through them before giving them a thorough wash. It looks like a huge pile of grass, but trust me, it's a lot tastier than grass.
