Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Challenge 2014 - Week 5 Through To Week 10 - Dumplings

Okay, so I missed a few weeks! So sue me! I've been very busy lately, cooking, cleaning, travelling (no where interesting of course), being an awesome girlfriend and a hard worker.

But of course, every time I have cooked something interesting, I've forgotten to take photos and write an actual post. I feel like a terrible mother, promising her child something delicious and amazing, then ignoring their pleas for attention... How awkward!

Over the weeks, we've cooked numerous things such as:


  • Mediterranean Chicken Salad
  • Fire Pit Roast Potatoes
  • Dukka Encrusted Lamb
  • Dumplings
The most recent being the dumplings, is clearly the easiest thing for me to remember!

Last night, Justin and I, sitting at home debating on what to have for dinner, finally decided to just walk around the supermarket until something took our fancy. Not always the best idea, especially when I'm hungry, but what other choice did we have? 

Upon our walk, we threw ideas around like; bacon and eggs, fish and chips, frozen pies. Until... we walked past the fridges, and I saw the wanton wrappers.

We could totally make dumplings, right? How hard could it be?!!?

Justin found a recipe online, and we went off, finding all of our ingredients.

Dumplings

1 Pkt Wanton wrappers
1 can water chestnuts, finely sliced
75gm bamboo shoots, finely sliced
250gm pork mince (we used the pork & beef mince)
75gm bean shoots
2 or 3 leaves of bok choi, finely sliced
1 tsp salt

Mix everything together, pile a teaspoon of mix in the centre of a wrapper, wet the edges of the wrapper with a finger, then close the edges up.

There are a few different ways to seal the edges:

  - Like little pocket hankies
 - In an 'X'
 - In plain triangles
 - Or scrunch them up like money bags

It all depends on the shape of the wanton wrappers, ours were square, so we went with the X design. You can also make your own dough, which is just water and flour.

You can cook them in a couple of ways also, boiling, steaming, or frying.
We have recently bought a Chinese bamboo steaming basket thingy, so decided to steam our dumplings.

We did however, make one mistake. We didn't prep the steamer, so EVERYTHING stuck to it. We haven't yet worked out how to fix this issue, but we figure if we soak the steamer in water for a little while before hand, it should stop the wrappers from sticking to it.

We steamed ours for 10 minutes, and served them with a soup (for Justin), and dipping sauce for me. We're yet to perfect the dipping sauce though, Justin kept adding sesame oil, and then that overpowered everything else! So, back to the drawing board for that.

Hope you've all been well! I'll try and post a few more recipes over the next couple of days, but this time, no promises!

Love, 

Jayde xx

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