Dumplings for Beginners

Hi everybody! echo, echo, echo...

Rock and William came over to our place a few days ago to cook us another Chinese classic: dumplings. They brought all of the ingredients, which included the pre-made wrappers, a huge hunk of pork (half fat), green onions and ginger. They're too nice.

So, the first thing that must be done is to take your meat cleaver and chop the bejesus out of the pork, ginger and green onions. After that, you mix in salt and chicken bouillon powder and you get something that resembles the above glob. Yes, you read that right: I said chicken bouillon powder. All of the best chefs use it as a substitute for MSG. Duh, guys.

After icing your arm from the half hour of chopping, you go through the tedious process of filling the dumpling wrappers with the mixture. For me, that simply meant sleeping while pretending to fill dumplings, as shown in the above photo. Melissa, Rock and William are good at filling them. Not me...

After all of the dumplings are filled, you boil them while giving an awkward peace sign. Man, I need a haircut.

After you put your hand down, fill your bowl with a little oil, soy sauce, salt, black vinegar (?!), cilantro and even more green onions. When you ladle in the dumplings, some boiling water will come with them and you get something like this:

I know what you're thinking; "Why the crap would I do all that when I could just buy frozen dumplings?". And then I would return your question with another question; "Why not just order takeout in the first place?". Touche. But seriously, they were really good, and for us, this method is the only option.

Cullen