Cheng's Dumplings

So remember this post about my Chicken fried rice? Well after eating Cheng's dumplings that night, I really wanted to put them on the blog. He was so kind to come over and make them again with me so I could jot down the recipe and so we could enjoy them again :)

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

1 lb (.5 kg) ground/minced pork*
3 chopped green onions
2 cups finely chopped cabbage
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp soy sauce
1-2 tsp salt
1/2 cup corn (optional)
1 egg
oil
dumpling skin

* I don't know about you, but we can't go to our supermarket and pick up ground pork. If your store offers that, Awesome! If not, just ask someone at the meat counter for some ground pork and they will be happy to ground some for you.

Instructions:

Mix pork, onions, cabbage, garlic powder, soy sauce, salt, corn and egg together.

Take dumpling skin, add about a 1/2 spoonful of meat to the middle. Dip you fingers in water and wet the edges of the dumpling skin. Fold in half pressing the sides together and fold to insure that the seal is tight.














This process might be a little confusing, so here is Cheng himself showing us how it's done!

There are two ways you cook these. Cheng is from Taiwan and he says they like things fried, but boiling them also works.

Method One (Frying)
Heat oil on medium in a frying pan. Add the dumplings to the pan and let them get brown (3-5 minutes). Put some water in the pan and cover for 5 minutes (or until water is evaporated). Turn the dumplings over to brown on the other side (3-5 minutes). Serve hot :)


Method Two (Boiling)
Boil water. Add dumplings to pot. Boil for 10 minutes (or until all dumpling have raised to the top). Serve on a platter (so they don't stick to each other)

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My husband prefers his dumplings fried. I like them both ways. Boiling them does give them a smooth texture. I also like the dumplings with or without the corn. The corn does give the dumplings a sweeter taste, but I didn't notice that big of a difference. The first time we ate them, we just put soy sauce on them.

This time Cheng made a special sauce with soy sauce, sesame sauce, and minced garlic. It was really good! It had a very savory taste. I recently got some sweet chili sauce (my favorite from when we lived in Australia!) and tried it on them. Boy, was it yummy! So just experiment with whatever sauces you have at home and Enjoy!

Thanks for helping me Cheng!

Chicken Fried Rice

Michael and I have a really good Asian friend. We played basketball with him this semester and our team ended up winning the championship! We were so excited we decided to have a "Super Asian Basketball Champion Party" with our team. I volunteered to make some fried rice. Cheng, our Asian friend, approved of it, so I decided it was good enough to put up on the blog :)

This rice was super fast and easy to make. Mostly because I used leftovers (rice and chicken). I don't like when people say add this and that and boom, your meal is done. I hate to admit that when I made this, that is exactly what I did, but I tried my best to guesstimate with the measurements.

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Cooking Time: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon oil

4 cups cooked white rice

3 eggs

1/2 chopped onion

1 tsp garlic powder

1 package of peas

1-2 cups chicken

salt to taste

soy sauce (optional)

Instructions:

If you don't have rice and chicken already, I would suggest cooking that first. 

Heat oil in a pan and add onion and garlic powder to it. 

When the onion is softened add peas and eggs to pan. Add some salt, too.

When you have scrambled the eggs, add the chicken and rice. 

Cook until everything is warm add salt to taste and serve with soy sauce. 

After eating this I was "chi-bo-la"... That's Mandarin for "I'm full." Hope you enjoy!