Dumpling Party! and Hot Pot too!

I love dumplings but store bought ones are just not that great and its just not the same when they are made fresh, not frozen for god knows how long. So some of us girls who have been sort of unemployed for the past few months decided to make dumplings.

Pork and Chive Dumplings

4pkgs dumpling skins

2lbs ground pork

1lb ground fatty pork

1 bunch Chinese chives (finely chopped)

3Tbls grated ginger

1 med head of Chinese cabbage (finely chopped)

10 shitake mushrooms (finely diced)

4Tbls soy sauce

1Tbls sesame oil

2Tbls vinegar

3/4cup water

2Tbls salt

1tsp white pepper

Mix all the ingredients together very thoroughly, preferably with your hands.

Fill the skins with the meat mix and seal with water.

I like to pan fry them with a little oil to start then cover them half way with water and put a lid over them. Cook until the dumplings puff up then remove lid. Let all the water evaporate and the bottoms of the dumplings get crispy.

And then we had Hot Pot ( which I don't like because all the flavors get melded together, but it was for a friend who got a job in New Orleans and was leaving that weekend).

We had a half and half pot with super spicy soup base on one side and I made a pork stock for the wusses. A full line up of mushrooms, tofu, fish cakes, fish/ squid balls, konyaku, veggies, dumplings, lots of fatty beef slices and of course the Taiwanese bbq sauce (sa cha jiang).

After all that I made them test my gram cracker ice cream and we had cake from red leaf bakery in flushing.