Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Pork Dumplings


Ok, I know I've been AWOL for a while on this blog. But with selling the house, moving into the apartment, building a house, moving again, and getting pregnant, life totes got busy. This of course meant that I really had no time to focus on blogging about my cooking...sad.

But luckily, things are finally starting to get a little into order which sucks because my little one will be here in November and that means I probably will be low on time again. Oh, my life. OK, I love it so I can't really complain. Plus, I've been focusing so much on my pregnancy that I've been blogging about that and keeping a pregnancy journal essentially. Check it out when you get a chance! http://thesenguptabunch.blogspot.com/

Now, thanks to growing a human, I have these awesome cravings. This week my baby girl seems to be wanting more of the asian flavor. I get it. I love all types of asian food so I know this is totally my kiddo. Not sure why, but dumplings sounded amazing the other day and since then, I've had tunnel vision about it...hence my need for making these cuz let's face it..the ones at the restaurant just aren't as good, and they give you like three. What's that about? Can't they see I'm preggo???!!! HA. Well luckily this recipe made about 36 dumplings meaning I will be fully satisfied! =)

Ingredients:
1 lb of ground pork
2 sprigs of scallions
3/4 of a medium red onion, diced
1 egg
Salt, pepper, soy sauce, sriracha, & oyster sauce to taste
1 package of wonton wrappers (the square kind)

Directions:
So I diced my onions first so that I could saute them a bit to soften them up. Always tastes better in my opinion. Not browned..just softened.


Slice up the scallions while those onions are softening...

Now, mix together the ground pork, scallions, softened onions, egg, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sriracha, salt, & pepper. 

Now that you've got everything melded together, spoon about a tablespoon onto the thin wonton wrappers. I don't have any pictures from this step..but here are the wrappers I use. Here is the video I used to make these lil' dumplings...

Yes, this can be a tedious and repetitive process but they come out so cute! I had a good re-run of a friends episode running while I crafted these up. 

Then, you can cook them right away or later. I was going to make these for dinner so I just covered it with some foil and stuck it in the fridge til' it came time to cook these lil' guys up. 
Once you're ready, you have a couple of options on how you want to cook these. You can boil them in just regular old water or chicken stock for a good soup base. I knew that today I was going to want them a lil' fried so I wanted to boil them first in just some water. When you first put them in, they will all sink to the bottom of the pot. Everyone into the hot tub!!

Once they are done, they will rise to the top.

Now you can eat them just like this (boiled) which is great in soups. 

Or give them a toss in the frying pan so they get that nice crispy skin! MMMMM...

AND THEN..........EAT EAT EAT!!!! I normally eat them with some sriracha and soy sauce! And you'll be shocked how filling these are...I ate about 5 and I was stuffed! =)

How do you like your dumplings? =)