Chinese Dumplings - "Jiaozi"

I finally realized the gratification of making your own food. I spent almost 4 hours making Chinese dumplings from scratch tonight and I truly enjoyed every second of it. It all started with a few simple instructions and an online recipe from Yahoo for the dumpling dough and I made up my own recipe for the filling. With minced fatty pork, shrimp, green onion, Napa cabbage, sesame oil, Chinese shaoxi cooking wine, light soy sauce, salt, sugar, fish sauce what can really go wrong. Well...trial and error can always fix some mistakes, I admit that the first 10 dumplings didn't turn out that great because the dough was too thick and the filling lacking in seasoning. My conclusion is that making Chinese dumplings is like making hors d'oeuvres, you want to pack as much flavours into those fillings as possible because you need to balance out the blaneness of the dough, also there are only a few bites in a dumpling so the more flavour the more memorable the bite.

After assemblying almost 10 dumplings, I decided to boil a few to try out the taste and find the flavours of the filling lacking so I decided to dump more soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, fish sauce into the filling mix and the filling finally looked liked what I have seen on TV or at those specialty dumpling stores. What exactly should it look like you might ask? It should be shiny with all the sauce and seasoning and the filling should be darker in colour not dominated by the light pinkish colour of the minced pork. The filling needs to be almost sticky like and should smell awsome not of raw meat or shrimp at all.

Why make dumplings when they are so readily available at Chinese supermarkets that are only 15 minutes drive from my house? Well, I believe that with all good food...you have to work at it, for me I want my dumplings to be MSG free. The feeling of being able to make my own dumplings is so amazing, I guess dumplings has always been a staple at my house rather I am aboard or at home in Vancouver. Chive and pork dumplings and watercress and pork dumplings were my buddies back in Beijing as a very late night dinner or late breakfast.

Biting into my very first dumpling tonight was an indescribable feeling, from kneading the dough to mixing the filling to assemblying everything together and then boiling it in water. I was responsible for every part of it and I knew exactly what went into this little morsel of goodness. This is a staple in many Northern Chinese family and making this dumpling feels like connecting with my Chinese roots. There is nothing like satisfying your tastebuds, improvishing on an ever-changing recipe as you go and tasting and adding more whatever is needed because you know exactly what good dumplings should taste like from eating it for the last 24 years of your life.

Here is a picture of my dumplings uncooked - after 20 dumplings I have gotten a hang of it and they were starting to look quite uniformed!

Dried Flounder

I have had dried flounder all my life without knowing it, it is one those ingredients that are hidden and you really don't notice it until you search for it. My discovery of dried flounder was through making my own version of wonton at home. Wonton is definitely my comfort food when I crave Hong Kong Cantonese food, it's simple yet comforting with its well-rounded favours of shrimp, pork and dried flounder powder. It is the ingredient that wonton needs to make it taste like wonton and a very important ingredient in wonton soup making it taste like what it is. I remember having little deep fried pieces of dried flounder with garlic and gai lan (mustardy Chinese greens) as well which are also an awesome dish on its own. I have also had dried flounder powder in home-made Chinese meat balls (pork), they were served at a hot pot and I could not stop eating them they were so addictive!

Surprisingly dried flounder is not fishy tasting at all, when combined with other ingredients it adds body to the dish and instead of adding another element into the flavour profile it rounds up all the other flavours in a comforting way. It is definitely not the prettiest ingredient to look at but definitely very versatile and cheap. You can find it at almost every Chinese supermarkets. I would recommend buying prepackaged ones as I have seen tiny little bugs in the dried flounders in the bulk section. I store my dried flounders in the freezer to extend its shelf-life and by peeling little pieces I make soup base for noodles and store-bought frozen fish balls and wontons (a staple at my house), who needs chicken powder and MSG when you have dried flounder, to give it extra flavour you can always heat the dried flounder with hot oil first before putting it inside the soup. What can I say, Chinese people are big fans of dried seafood. Here is the recipe for my very simple noodle soup base for one those Saturday late lunch because you slept in till noon and is starving by the time you brush your teeth and crave noodles at home....(I am sure everyone has Saturdays like this right?)

Recipe for Soup Base with Dried Flounder:
serves 1

-3 pieces of dried flounder (each piece the size of your thumb - this is a very causal recipe as you can see)
- 3 cups of water
-a dash of white pepper
-1 - 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
-a dash of salt
- toasted sesame oil (if you want)

Boil the above ingredient for 10 minutes and add in any protein or vegetables of you choice and noodles. Personally I really like my frozen fish balls, squid balls, octopus balls, beef balls (did I mention I like balls - I meant ball -shaped food..sorry..), as well as frozen dumplings, wontons. My noodle of choice is either fresh thick rice noodles or dried ones would do as well and udon noodles. Ultimately whatever ingredients you can boil and serve within 10 minutes is a good choice.

Don't be intimidated by dried flounder just because it looks ugly or pre-historic or fossil-like in the packaging because they do dry the whole fish with the eyes and ears and all (be careful of the scales on the skin - just peel the flesh off the skin to avoid the scales and don't be afraid to use the bones as well as you are only using it to flavour the soup not to eat whole pieces in the soup) - this ugly duckling contributes to many dishes that we might not necessarily notice but it truly transforms the simplest ingredients into something very comforting!