Chinese Dumplings On Chinese New Year
By Staff Writer - egourmetstore.com, Fri Dec 9th
One of my fondest childhood memories is the celebrations aroundChinese New Year. This was a time of great excitement and joy,families came together, children were given gifts, and everyoneenjoyed traditional New Year's foods. Perhaps my favorite NewYear food was Chinese dumplings.
Each New Year's Eve my entire family came together to makedumplings for the celebration. Over time this evolved into atime honored and cherished family tradition. Making dumplings inthose days was complicated work. The process required makingdough, preparing fillings, rolling out wraps, and assembling thefinished dumplings. All preparation was done by hand. We did nothave food processors, dough machines, or other modernconveniences. You may think this is a lot of work but I haveonly fond memories of the time.
My brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins allparticipated in our New Year's Eve dumpling making tradition. Mymom always served as the leader and organizer. She would preparethe dough, wash the vegetables, and carefully check all theother ingredients and spices. My aunts and uncles would chopvegetables, prepare meats and carefully hand roll each dumplingwrap. During this preparation time all the family talkedtogether, laughed and joked, and generally had a grand time.Sometimes the children were a little mischievous. When theadults were not watching we would take a few wraps and fill themwith candies, salt, or hot peppers. We called these "good luckdumplings" and tried hard to make them look exactly like thosemade by the adults. In the evening we would all sit down to abig meal which included my favorite, Chinese Dumplings.
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When I was old enough my mother passed down to me her recipe andtechniques for making tasty traditional Chinese dumplings. TodayI would like to share that with you. I hope you enjoy thesehealthy, tasty treats. Perhaps they can become part of your ownfamily's tradition on Chinese New Year.
Traditional Chinese Dumplings
Serves 6 people:
.½ pound ground pork or ground lamb .2 ½ pounds Chinese NapaCabbage or ½ pound of garlic chives .1 teaspoon finely choppedginger .1 bundle green onions .2 tablespoons soy sauce .2teaspoons sesame oil .1 teaspoon cooking wine .1 pack ofdumpling wraps .Black pepper to taste
Chopping:
Wash the vegetables (green onion and Napa or chives) and allowthem to air dry. After drying, chop the vegetables to smallpieces approximately ¼ inch in diameter. Finely chop the ginger.
Mixing:
Place the meat in a bowl. Add the ginger, green onion, soysauce, cooking wine, sesame oil, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and blackpepper. Mix well. Add the Napa or chives and mix again.
Note: If you use Chinese Napa as the vegetable, after choppingbut before mixing with the meat, season with 1 1/2 teaspoonssalt and let rest at room temperature about 20-30 minutes. Drainthe Napa before adding to the meat.
Assembly: Moisten the edges of the wrap with water. Spoon about1 teaspoon of the mixture into the middle of the wrap. Fold thewrap in half and pinch the edges together to form a sealedpocket. Repeat until all of the ingredients have been used.
Cooking: Drop into a pot of boiling water and cook for about 15minutes until they float to the surface. Be sure meat issufficient heated to kill any bacteria.
Serving: Serve with soy sauce or dip of your choice
Enjoy the dumplings!!
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