Tag: dimsum

Yelly Eats

Chinese potsticker dumplings

Yelly

I’ve almost always bought the potstickers (which are similar to the Japanese gyoza), whether cooked and ready to eat or frozen.  I’ve never really made them myself.  Mostly because I thought the pleating would be a difficult thing to do.  I’m a perfectionist so anything that doesn’t look good to me is a disappointment (reminds me of the mini-melt down I had when I first made carrot cake whoopie pies.  It involved a quiet scream and the throwing of the poor, innocent ice cream scooper!).  To avoid the disappointment, I just don’t do things.

But lately, I’ve been fairly adventurous (helped along by Alan’s encouragement!).  Last week, I made siomai.  This weekend, it was Chinese pork potsticker dumplings.  I must have watched a lot of “how-to-pleat” videos on youtube to mentally prepare myself for the exercise.  The dumplings turned out really well and has (probably) been given the Alan seal of approval.  I used store bought dumpling wrappers – the next time I’m doing it, I’m doing EVERYTHING completely from scratch!

Ingredients:

  • 110g ground pork2015-02-21 19.00.12
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt
  • 1 tsp dark soy sauce
  • 1 tsp rice wine
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • ½ ground white pepper
  • 1 tbsp corn starch
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 clove garlic, grated
  • 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
  • 1 heaping tbsp chives chopped finely
  • 18 dumpling wrappers

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together until well incorporated.
  2. Taking a dumpling wrapper, dampen the edges of the dumpling wrapper.  Place 2 teaspoons of the mixture in the center of the wrapper, and holding the wrapper like a taco, start pleating the edges of the wrapper, pinching with each pleat to seal the dumpling well.  Place on a parchment paper-lined baking tray and set aside until ready to cook.
  3. My version of cooking the dumplings might be different from most people, but it works for me.  There are other ways, so feel free to cook them any other way that works for you.  I place water and vegetable oil in a wok (or shallow saucepan) and allow the water to heat up to a gentle rolling boil.  Place 6-8 dumplings in the boiling water and allow to boil covered for 5 minutes.  Uncover the dumplings and swirl (carefully) around to make sure that the dumplings aren’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Allow the water to evaporate and add a little oil to fry the dumplings until they’re golden brown.
  4. Serve with your favourite dip!

Chinese pork dumplings

Yelly Writes

Rethink, regroup maybe?

Yelly

The weekend’s been a bit of a washout.  It rained.  Really hard.  As I was coming out of the hairdressers’ it was, as the Met Office predicted, showery.  Very showery.  No make that heavy on the showery.  But because I was a girl scout (I was, really!  I wore the green Girl Scouts of the Philippines uniform for 6 years!) I brought with me an umbrella.  Said rain would have, most probably, put a damper on the proceedings at the Colchester Food and Drink Festival.  Lower Castle Park can get squelchy when it rains.  I was looking forward to going to the food festival today.  So the rain wasn’t welcome!  Except that I managed to get 2 important things done: my hair AND get dim sum from my favourite Chinese supermarket.  I got beef and pork (and shrimp) siu mai, bean curd rolls and dumplings for frying!

I was, however, lamenting my choice of footwear.  I have allowed my lovely ballet flats (my favourite pair!) to be soaked in rain water.  Not a good thing, I don’t think!  I may have to replace them.  It’s a good thing they’re a Clark’s shoes standard and, thank goodness, there is a sale on!  Mind you, that particularly design may not be on sale, but we shall see!

***

On to other things, I am a tiny bit disappointed that my giveaway hasn’t worked.  Mind you, I haven’t really done anything to promote the giveaway so that may be the first thing I should address.  I will wait until the last day, 6 July and see if there is any interest.  If not, I shall go back to the drawing board and have a rethink!  Maybe attempt Rafflecopter again?

I thought if I did too much to prepare, I would be overthinking the whole blog giveaway thing.  But I think this time, overthinking may be the best thing.  I want to run a really good blog giveaway and I want it to be exciting!  So after 1AM on 6 July, if I have no takers, I’m going to try to give the iPhone case again.  I just shake my head at the seemingly sloppy way I’ve prepped for this giveaway!  In the words of Mr Knightley (Jane Austen’s Emma), “Badly done!”

***

On another note, I am quite surprised at how much I love my hair.  It was cut by someone else and I wasn’t quite sure I liked how they handled my hair.  Thankfully, it wasn’t something I was unhappy about.  What a relief!  The lady that cut my hair no longer worked at the salon that I went to.  It took me almost 2 years to find someone to do my hair in a way that I was comfortable with.  And now she’s moved!  I was given her number and I’ve sent her a text message.  I hope she sends me a text message back so that I can go where she works!  Unless, of course, she doesn’t text back!  Scary thought!

Yelly Eats

Style over substance

Yelly

Ping pong

I love dimsum.  Particularly siu mai.  I’ve always thought that if dimsum was the universe, siu mai (and it’s numerous varieties) was the point of the big bang.  Where everything started.  But that’s my opinion.  I’m sure Chinese cuisine historians have differing opinions.

I miss the Philippines and it’s numerous siu mai kiosks dotted around.  If you wanted siu mai, there would be some small kiosk that you could go to to satisfy the craving.  It’s not so available here in the UK.  While Chinese takeaway is a favourite and every town, no matter how small, will have a Chinese takeaway establishment, not all the takeaways have dimsum.  The closest thing to dimsum is wanton soup, which is, thankfully, available on all the Chinese takeaway menus where I live.  Small favours, and am very thankful for them!

I am a huge fan of the dimsum trolley service.  Ladies going around the restaurant, pushing steaming trolleys filled with tiny bamboo steam baskets filled with unknown goodies.  I love the excitement of finding out what the trolley is carrying: siu mai, dumplings, hakaw, beef balls, char siu pork in puff pastry, spring rolls, crab dumplings, crispy prawn balls, turnip cakes and the occasional lotus wrapped sticky rice parcel.  I’ve since started mourning the loss of 2 restaurants that did trolley service really well.  There was a restaurant that I only remember as CCK in Chinatown.  It stopped its trolley service, then turned into an all-you-can-eat then closed down.  Then came New World.  It was dimsum perfection — for a while.  The service and the quality of food has since declined and it’s been 2 years since I’ve been.  People have suggested going to Royal China either in Bayswater or Baker Street but I haven’t had the time to.  Since New World, I’ve only ever gone to dimsum restaurants that serve you dimsum after you order them.

We went to the newly opened Ping Pong brance in Westfield Stratford yesterday.  The only word that comes to mind is horrible.  They didn’t have prawn or pork siu mai (which, in my opinion, is the backbone of dimsum choices), the dimsum was bland and oversteamed.  When the steaming baskets came to the table, you uncovered a gelatinous mess!  Everything needed a bit of flavour because everything was basically globs of nothing.  Even the soy and the chilli oil and sauce were bland.  For all the colour and styling in the restaurant space everything faded into the beigeness of the food.  And never again am I coming back to a Ping Pong branch.  It didn’t live up to the hype.  And it was all style and no substance.