Travelling in Mary Janes

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Dumplings aren’t traditionally a Chinese New Year dish. However, I’m listing it under Chinese New Year as this was part of the menu on Chinese New Year day.

I love making dumplings. There is something oddly satisfying of standing in the kitchen: stuffing, folding and pleating neat little dumplings. When I started to plan the menu for CNY night, I originally wanted to try the garlic chive recipe that @jeroxie had introduced me to at the Dumpling Party, but after a hunt around my local stores and failing to find garlic chives I decided to make up my own recipe.

Ingredients

300g Hard Tofu
100g Shitake Mushrooms
80g Carrot
1 tbsp Ginger
3 tbsp Sesame Oil
2 teaspoon Salt
1.5 teaspoon Sugar
1 tbsp Soya Sauce
Pepper (to taste)
1 Egg
1 tbsp Corn Flour

Dumpling skins

Method

1. Dry the hard tofu by putting it in between paper towels and pressing down firmly and evenly at regular intervals.

2. Cut the hard tofu into small squares to aid with mincing.

3. Mince the tofu, either by using a food processor or a Slap Chop. (I have a slap chop wannabe, and it’s made my life so much easier: if only because I’m too busy laughing at it to realise how silly I look slapping away.)

4. Mince the ginger, dice the mushrooms and grate the carrots.

5. Mix everything up starting with the Tofu, Salt, Sugar, Soy Sauce then Mushrooms, Carrots, Ginger, and everything else, ending with the Egg. Make sure everything is evenly mixed. Don’t use a food processor or a blender or anything electronic for this. Get your hand in that bowl and mix it up manually.

6. Using a teaspoon, stuff the dumpling skins and pleat to seal.

7. Pan-fry, steam or boil the dumplings and you are ready to eat!

I feel that I should point out now that mincing hard tofu by hand, even with a Slap Chop Wannabe, was hard work. I’ve never worked with hard tofu before so wasn’t aware of exactly how much tofu would end up in my bowl after mincing it all up. It took us a whole hour to mince through 650g of hard tofu. Next time, I really should get a food processor.

Nevertheless, it was fun! And I got to teach my housemate how to make dumplings. Do you have a favourite dumpling recipe? I’m thinking to try all sorts of different ones, so am on the look out for a new recipe to try.

Till next time, eat on!