She cooks!
Tonight I tried my hand at vegetarian dumplings,
and results were pretty positive!
It is a well known fact amongst the people who know me that I am a terrible cook. I avoid cooking like the plague, and most of my cooking ventures turn into nightmares. However with the reality of living out of home looming, I figured its time to start making some culinary attempts. So tonight, with help from gorgeous Sarah I made vegetarian dumplings.
The recipe
I got the main recipe from taste.com.au which is where I get most of my recipes from. Not because they are any better than another, but mainly because the site is super easy to use and have a heap of recipes from different sources. The exact link for the dumplings is:
And, I just want to say, mine did NOT look like these... But they were very tasty :)
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 1/2 cups finely shredded wombok (Chinese cabbage)
- 1 small carrot, peeled, grated
- 50g shiitake mushrooms, finely chopped
- 1/2 x 225g can bamboo shoots, chopped
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 30 (275g packet) gow gee wrappers
Method
- Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, wombok, carrot and mushroom. Cook, stirring, for 5 to 6 minutes or until cabbage has wilted. Remove from heat. Stir in bamboo shoots and soy sauce. Cool for 10 minutes.
- Place wrappers on a flat surface. Spoon 2 teaspoons cabbage mixture on 1 half of each wrapper. Brush edges with cold water. Fold over to enclose filling. Press edges together to seal. Place on a tray lined with baking paper.
- Place a steamer lined with baking paper over simmering water. Cook dumplings, in batches, for 15 minutes or until tender and cooked through. Serve.
Now, my variations were that I used water chestnuts rather than bamboo shoots (personal preference thing), and really that was it.
The wanton wrappers we bought from Coles, but I think if I try it again I will either make my own or try to find some thinner ones. They seemed really think, and after they came out of the steamer they went hard on the edges. If the wrappers were circle they might have been a bit better.
I ate mine with plum sauce but you can eat them with any sauce you like! I probe wouldn't have tomato sauce on them, even though I have stated in the past that tomato sauce goes well with everything. Maybe not asian food...
First cooking all the ingredients
The recipe said 2 teaspoons of mix, but we found 1 heaped teaspoon was ok. As a result we had a shit load of mix left over.
We ate the rest of it in a stir fry with chicken and noodles :)
We steamed then by placing the bamboo steamer in the wok. The wok had a bit of water in
the bottom which we just topped up as it steamed away. It fit pretty nicely in the wok which was
nice. The bamboo steamer was a bargain - $3.50 from the Asian grocer in Croydon.
Finished product! Looks gross, but tasted great!
So there you go! Lovely dumplings!
I might try and do another dish this week. Dunno what yet, and I don't want to push myself too hard trying to be creative, but at least I know I can make something edible. It seems I won't starve when I move to Korea :D
Just quickly - Fan Death Update
Now, this I have to admit I didn't find myself, I follow a blog called 'Ask a Korean' who is a pretty funny Korean guy who lives in America. http://askakorean.blogspot.com.au/
It turns out, there may be truth behind the deadly Fan Death (for info on this, read my earlier blog on funny Korean things).
The New York Times has posted an article, saying that in high temperatures fans can actually become a bit of a health hazard due to the fact that they don't cool air they just circulate it. So old people and other 'compromised' people might be at risk of dehydration and heat exhaustion. And therefore DEATH!
Anyway, read the link, tell me what you think. Fan death - real or myth?
Till next time!
xx
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