Secret Chinese Dumpling Recipe II...

Ok I can't wait til tomorrow, Allen is not giving me enough attention... he's talking to his brother on the phone :( and I'm bored..

Ok so next part..
We have the STUFFING! it makes a huge difference if you don't make a good stuffing... This is our family recipe (no not really hehe, but it's how my mom and my grandma makes it)

Ingredients:
Ground pork
Chinese Leek (Jio Tsai / Jiu Cai)
Green Onion
Shitake Mushrooms
Small Dried Shrimp (Sia Mi / Xia Mi)
*note not the flaky shrimp skins, this kind doesn't have head and is more meaty*
Soy Sauce
Sesame Oil
Salt
White Pepper
some water


For the meat, I usually like to use extra lean. The frozen kind you can always taste the fat, yuck!

Pre soak the shitake mushroom and dried shrimp, and chop them up finely. It's a lot easier if you have a food processor or a blender, use that to chop them up. I like my shitake mushroom in larger chunks, but shrimp in smaller chunks. And I usually put more mushrooms, I love mushrooms.

Chop up the leek and green onion (with a knife, not food processor) into about 1/4 inch pieces, mix it with the meat. Dump the mushroom and the shrimp in also, and mix.

Now, add some soy sauce (the color should change slightly darker after you mix) and sesame oil, and also a little white pepper and salt. I know, the amount is kind vague.. I never measure it, just add some.

Then add some water. This is to mix everything together better and makes the stuffing more juicy after you cook it. It makes a big difference. Add just enough water to make the stuffing softer, but not liquidy, enough to have it still stick together. Our big pot of stuffing, i probably add 5 cups of water.

The next part is very important. STIR the stuffing in ONE direction. ONLY ONE DIRECTION. For about 5 mins.... your arm might get tired, you can rest or have someone else stir in the same direction. The reason for this is that you can see the fiber of the meat would elongate, and would hold everything else together better. If you stir in all directions, the stuffing would likely fall apart when you bite into it after it's cooked.

After this, you'd be ready to wrap them!

oh if you use the homemade skins, you don't have to use water to wrap the skins like the factory made ones, if you pinch hard, the skin would stick.


Sauce:
For the sauce... Soy sauce, sesame oil, finely chopped garlic and green onion should do.


Boiling:
To tell when the dumplings are ready, basically they have to float, and the skin would be semi transparent, like the one in the picture below, you should be able to see a little bit of the greens in the stuffing.