Attempting green nira dumplings this afternoon

[vsoy]

I was in the supermarket yesterday and they had gil choy(green nira, jiu tsai or chinese chives) in the produce section. I snapped up all they had out in a heartbeat and all I could think about yesterday and today was these awesome dumplings I made with my mom when she came to visit me. Your breath is awful after a meal like that, but it is so good. I gots me 12 tins of Altoids from Costco so it's all good.

The one thing I forgot about making the dumplings is the bitchy cleaning part. It went a lot faster when you had 3 pairs of hands and I am dreading that part. It's got bits of dirt and a few slimy leaves, yuck. May take a couple of hours :cry:

I'm hoping to make enough so I can freeze some for an easy dinner but I love dumplings, they may not make it. Making skins from scratch too! Love that thick skin. I remember one visit in Beijing when my mom and I had dumplings at some dumpling shop that was outdoors. MAN that was some good shit.

Off to making dumplings!

[ellencho]

pics vsoy pics!

[vsoy]

Type: Entree/appetizer
Origin:Chinese/Japanese
From: vsoy
Notes: Can be vegetarian if ground meat is omitted.

Da raw material, 2 lbs of chinese chives:
http://tinypic.com/2aiv7p

What a bitch to clean, 1.5 hrs to pick through, not to mention soaking, drying, chopping and "salting" to retain color and squeeze out water. I chopped the chives finely, 1/4-1/8" long, putting the chopped chives in a colander. In between bunches, I sprinkled several tablespoons of salt. When finished, I put a plate on top with a can or two of peeled tomatoes for weight. After half an hour, not much dripped out so I ended up using my hands squeezing the water out. I didn't try getting every last drop, I just squeezed out the bulk.

Makin' dumplings:
http://tinypic.com/2aiaac
I'm so jealous of people who can beautiful dumplings, mine look like frankenstein rejects. To make mattes worse, I had dough malfunctions. I usually don't have problems making dough with my bread machine but the 3 batches I made today were just not textbook. I usually make 1.5 lb dough (involves 3 cups of flour). The first batch I goofed and put in 1 tsp of yeast instead of 1 tbsp. Oops, it didn't rise. Threw it in a warm toaster oven for an hour while I was making stuffing and batch2. Batch2 was much better but didn't rise as much as previous batches, not sure why. Batch 3, ran short of yeast but ended up not using it. I made an enormous steamed bun with this batch in the rice cooker. Looks like a batch yielded about 25 wrappers for me

I mixed in about 1lb of ground turkey with the squeezed chives, some soy sauce, sesame seed oil, pepper, rum. Smelled good. We need an emoticon that has a smiley lickin his lips for the food thread.

44dumplings:
http://tinypic.com/2aivz9
I ended up making 52, but I got a kick out of 44fighting dumplings.

Boiling to cook dumplings:
http://tinypic.com/2aiw69
Yeah, I know frying them is divine, but I'm terrible at frying things when I'm tired. These are humogous dumplings so I ended up boiling for 12-15 minutes just to be safe. I scooped out the dumplings onto a plate and using a second plate as a cover, I drained the excess water in the sink or in a bowl.

Finished product:
http://tinypic.com/2aiwdk

I wanted to make A LOT more but ran out of stuffing, but I've got enough for dinner sometime this week and 2 baggies to freeze. After spending about 6hrs making dumplings by myself, I was just tired and sick of them. Usually when I'm assisting or I have help, I can put away quite a few during the process. You know, gotta make the sacrifice and eat the ones that blew up or broke. But all I could muster down was 3 during quality control and 5 at dinner. But it was good, yum yum. Next time, get some helping hands, too much work for one person.

[ellencho]

Awesome pics! I'm so jealous I want dumplings now too! I also get pretty tired making dumplings for long periods of time. For the most part, I make shu mai and I buy the wrappers for those, so that saves me a lot of time and agony.

Every place I've lived in, other than my parent's house, I've used gas stoves and I turn them up full blast when making stir-fries and stuff like that. With certain better quality cookware that I own, like cuisinart pans, I hvae to turn down the flame because the pans absorb heat so well. I feel like with electric stoves you have a harder time managing the heat because you have to wait for the heat to go down, with a gas flame it's instant gratification.

[cattygurl]

some of the new electric burners are a lot better about heat control.

That said, my nice anodized aluminum and stainless set pands get so hot so quickly... I spent the first week burning foods when I first got them.

I love dumplings... I should convince my BF to make some when I get home (he's the cook, I'm more of the baker).

[vsoy]

I had the hubby fry some of the dumplings up last night. OMG, even better the next day with the crispy parts. He just started a diet and I was eating off of his plate.

For dipping sauce, I like to mix soy sauce, sesame seed oil, a little sugar, some vinegar and some sambal oleck chili sauce for some zing. What do you guys like to put in?

[ellencho]

I had the hubby fry some of the dumplings up last night. OMG, even better the next day with the crispy parts. He just started a diet and I was eating off of his plate.

For dipping sauce, I like to mix soy sauce, sesame seed oil, a little sugar, some vinegar and some sambal oleck chili sauce for some zing. What do you guys like to put in?
I'm big on texture, and in terms of taste and textural treats, pan fried dumplings are among my favorites.

Your dipping sauce sounds a lot like mine. Depending on how wiped out I feel after making my dumplings I'll normally use your ingredients, and then add some scallion and a smashed clove of garlic too.

[Taliesin Stormheller]

I don't really like jiu cai so I prefer string bean and shredded tofu skin dumplings (veggie here), but I need my dumpling fix right now!
I make my own skins as well and 'round these parts we dip 'em in just soy sauce and Lao Chen Tzu (old heavy vinegar). Hey, do y'all like dumpling soup? You know, the liquid used to boil dumplings, mixed with some white pepper, soy sauce, vinegar, and MSG? My mom says that that stuff helps with the digestion. BTW, I eat whole cloves of garlic with my dumplings. 1 to 1/2 clove per dumpling. It tastes faboo.

[aelward]

I'm personally not a big fan of Chinese chives in my dumplings, but my wife loves them. When we wrap, we'll make 2-3 different kinds of stuffings to suit everyone's tastes. Me, I'm a garlic/pork/cabbage/green onions/ginger/soysauce type of guy.

One acquaintance of mine, a professional cook, suggested NOT salting the chives, green onions, or cabbage because it dries them out TOO much. We started following his advice, and he was right! Though it also means not including the thick vein of the cabbage when you mix.

As for wrappers, I've never been good at rolling them; we end up using pre-made ones. But my aunt, from Shandong, will make the wrappers by hand and use the leftover dough to make hand-cut noodles....mmmmmmm.

And despite my disdain for nira, it is really good for the heart and circulation in general....