happy new year!

last night we went to my brother's house and made dumplings! i love the idea of making this dumpling fest an annual tradition. it's lots of fun to make together and quite a tasty outcome at the end.

last time we made dumplings with my in-laws when they were here for (american) new year's. i gravely mis-remembered the number of skins in a package and so i hastily made the dough from memory - and they were great! we thought they tasted better than the package skins, and were easy to make. just mix about 2 parts of flour to a bit less than 1 part of hot water, and now you have dough for dumpling skins! it's also the same dough for scallion pancakes, so i tried my hand at it. you just roll out some of this dough, paint with oil (i sprayed), sprinkle with scallions and a touch of salt. then you fold it into thirds, roll up, then put the roll on its side and flatten out - this is how the flaky layers are made. then you fry in a decent amount of oil and have a tasty pancake!

the first couple were not so good. the first time i tried to be healthy and spray the pan. doesn't cook the pancake all the way through - you need to pour the oil in, though you don't need a ton either. the second i rolled too thin, and it was like a chip (albeit a tasty one).

next time i will have the butcher grind the pork for me. i was in a hurry this time, and i think the texture/taste suffered. my sister-in-law's dumplings were far better, partly because she had done this.


the kids liked playing with the dough. well, boo liked playing with the flour. this picture doesn't do justice to the sheer amount of flour on him.

my nephew was genuinely helpful, though. here he is demonstrating the roll! most of the time we had him portioning out the dough and rolling into a ball for DH to roll out. he made a couple of dumplings of his own - including a "death star" dumpling, which actually looked remarkably like a land cruiser.

he also demonstrated his impressive dance moves when phil collins "sususudio" (how do you spell that?) came on, inspired by "so you think you can dance." there were also some interesting acrobatics.