Dumplings!
One year ago Jim and I were packing to go to China, we are also coming up on Chinese New Year so I thought I would try some new recipes. While in China we had some pork dumplings that were AMAZING! They had soup in them and I had them every chance I got. I have been craving them ever since and I have not seen them anywhere. So a year later the light bulb goes off and I googled pork soup dumplings and this is what I find, Steamy Kitchen! Perfect but wait that is a lot to attempt in one dish! So I thought I would start at the end and work my way to the soup dumplings, my biggest concern was the dough. I have never done dough from scratch before and I was a bit intimidated. So I thought before the big, yummy, soup dumplings which are apparently called Xiao Long Bao, I would use some egg roll filling that we had left over and just try the dough.
We didn't have a bamboo steamer so off the the kitchen store we went. Not to skip to the end but I think we will be using this for many dishes! I used the recipe from Steamy Kitchen! Although Jim didn't start to take pictures until the rolling phase. I was a little nervous but it turned out great. I am now excited to make many more doughy dishes! I think that in the next couple of weeks when I attempt the whole recipe we are going to be very happy!
Kneading the dough, notice the laptop near by for needed moral support :)
The Princess woke up from her nap just in time to help with the rolling of the dough. (FYI- we did not go anywhere today so it was outfit of her choosing and who really needs to comb their hair anyway :)
In the steamer YUM!
Finished product!! So good. We learned a lot from this attempt and next time the pleating will be better, I am sure it will never be pretty but that is ok as long as they don't leak soup. I am sure that I will never be a Chinese chef but I hope that I can make some dishes (Chinese or American) that Chloe will someday want to make for her family.
Just a warning but you might want to be ready for some flash back posts. I really didn't get to post like I would have liked to in China. It was...let me just say, more challenging that I anticipated and things like blogging suddenly seemed not as important as I once thought they would be.
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Love ya
The picture of the two of you rolling the dough gave me tears in my eyes, again. And only afterwards did I see your post of the ABC song (what a great idea to put her in her crib, love to see her on a video - so much joy she has!). The video of her reading books is sooo cute too though. I must admit I'd forgotten how unbelievably cute she was back then - I just think she is cute all the time, but her tiny version definitely beats all cuteness records.
I think I need to catch up on sleep before reading your flashback posts, if not, I will be sitting in salty puddles in front of my computer!
Oh and the pleating of your dumplings look pretty professional to me already!
Alyzabeth's Mommy