Delightful Dumplings

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:

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/25360/vegetarian+dumplings

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/really-in-a-heat-wave-an-electric-fan-can-cool-you-off/

Till next time!

xx

Fun Korean Facts

Disclaimer - these 'facts' may or may not be facts...

Some funny things I have heard

As you can probably imagine I have spent ALOT of time Googling information on South Korea, and through my online travels I have read some pretty interesting things. Some of them might be complete bullshit, but others may just be true. At the request of a friend (Nay - shout out to you pal!) I thought I might start putting some of the more interesting stories up in here. So, bit of a disclaimer here, these so called Korea facts may or may not be true. Its just things I have heard or read. And there are probably WAY more, so by all means if you hear something funny/weird/gross/interesting/scary or whatever please post it up! Drop me a comment, or an email, or fb me or whatever! I love new information :)

Korean 'Fan Death'

This one is all over other people's blogs... Its pretty ridiculous, but the theory is that if you leave a fan on inside while you are sleeping, and you haven't left a window or a door open, you might die. Apparently death can be caused by asphyxiation, the fan can suck the oxygen out of the room and leave you with no air. Another theory is that your body temperature lowers too much and you die of hypothermia. And another theory says that the fan blowing air over your mouth/face moves too quickly, and people cannot get enough air and therefore die. There have been documented deaths and during summer the government issues health warning about fan death. 

Check out this link - 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

So there you go, fans can, and DO kill. Beware of fans.

And this pic just made me lol. I am totally going to start up a pics page, and put this one in there... It's like - "the Fan did it"

"Unlucky" things

This, I would imagine, may be a common theme throughout parts of East Asia. In fact, every culture has things that they consider to be 'unlucky' so I am not sure if this really counts. But it made me giggle, so I will put a few in...

The number 4

Number 4 is super unlucky, it has some link with death. I am not sure why... but there you go (I will do some research and see if I can find the reason). 

In elevators and things like that, there is no 4th floor. Rather than using the number, they actually write 'fourth' or just the letter 'F'. Some building even leave out 4 all together and just go straight to 5. I was telling someone about this the other day, and they told me that its common in hotels and things to not have a13th floor. Thats why they often have a dining room or something like that on the 12th so they can go straight to 14 after (have a really big/high level I suppose...) so its not just them. But still, its just a number...

Writing in red ink

Also very unlucky. If you write someones name in red ink, apparently it works a little bit like a Death Note... You are increasing their chances of dying. I have read on a few ESL teacher blogs that its best not to do corrections in red pen either, as it can really upset the kids. It actually freaks them out. :s

Tongue Surgery

This one is a bit different. The belief is that if you have that part of your tongue that joins it to the bottom of your mouth cut, then you can speak better English. It has to do with pronunciation... So mothers think they they are helping their kids out by getting them to have tongue surgery and then being able to speak better English. I really do not believe this is the case, I am sure that with some practice and a good teacher they can pronounce English words just fine. But there you go. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingual_frenectomy

Believe it... Or not?

I will totally check these things out when I get there :D

xx