Our students here are very friendly and seem glad to help us. Last Saturday, three came to our apartment to fix a traditional Chinese meal of dumplings, fish soup, and fried eggplant. Growing up in China, most guys and girls are trained to cook. They all seem good at chopping with giant meat cleavers:
The dumplings are stuffed with a mix of ground pork, cabbage, spices, and salt – a lot of salt:
Of course, oil is essential to everything Chinese – locals regularly carry home two gallons at a time from the market. They usually use pork oil, not the foreign Wesson Canola oil in our kitchen:
My first-ever dumpling making lesson! There’s an art to folding the shell:
Mine is obviously the one on the far left. Thankfully, I improved after making several dozen.
Showing off our dumplings!
Almost everything gets cooked in a wok, including the soup. Yes, the carp was alive when the students brought it over this morning:
After the soup was finished, the dumplings were boiled and the eggplant was fried in oil with an assortment of local spicy things (and salt):
The finished meal. It took three hours to make, but it was quite good, and we were grateful for the time spent with students!
yep, you’re definitely making me dumplings when I come to visit!
did they use a bunch of msg too? Aside from salt and oil, that seems to be the other essential ingredient of the typical Chinese dish.
Chinese food is so fun to cook! And a great social event too.
I do love those Chinese dumplings! Our neighbor in Hartefeld would often make us some. Do they have any Mexican restaurants there?
Regina, we are surprised that there aren’t Mexican restaurants here. It seems like the tastes and prices would make it a perfect fit, but for some reason, it is still an untapped market. Maybe you and Mark should move here and give it a go…
you know after that 21 course dumpling meal we had in china a few years ago, i have never wanted to look at them again. at least yours had a slightly more “normal” filling.