Yangshou, China

I will be honest. When the Mister and I decided to head to China, I may or may not have had visions of unending buffets, stretching out as far as the eye could see. I also had visions of elastic waist pants. You know, to accomodate the All You Can Eat experience I was preparing myself for. One thing I did not prepare for was the subzero temperatures that were waiting to turn my fingers blue as soon as we had landed in Beijing. I spent the hour taxi ride from the airport cursing myself for not packing my fleece lined pants, while the Mister just slept. And snored, loudly. 
The next morning we found out that not only was China cold, but it was big. Really big.

In fact, China has roughly 1.3 billion people, in comparison to the US's 3 million, making it the world’s most populous country. And of those 1.3 billion people, imagine just how many dumplings the average person would be able to consume on a daily basis. And with at least six different varieties of dumpling out there, I’m thinking the number is close to a squillion. I felt like every day I personally ate my requisite squillion, and there were still some to spare.

As we travelled south from Beijing, we were met with so many different regional cuisines that my head began to spin. One thing remained the same, however. And that one thing was dumplings. Glorious dumplings. And in Yangshou, we were going to learn to make them for ourselves.

Steamed Pork Dumplings
adapted from Cloud 9 Restaurant

1 lb ground pork

4 oz canned mushrooms (you can substitute with shiitake, but when I made these, the canned mushrooms were convenient and tasted fine)

3 tbsp of spring onion (scallion), chopped

¼ cup shredded carrot

1 tsp vegetable oil

4 drops sesame oil

¼ tsp black pepper

A pinch of sugar

1 tsp salt

Wonton skins

Bamboo Steamer *

Finely chop the mushrooms, onions and carrots into a fine dice and mix with the ground pork. Season the filling with oils, salt, pepper and sugar. Fill wonton skins with approximately 1 tbsp of filling and fold accordingly.

If you have a bamboo steamer, fit the steamer over a pot of boiling water and steam for 10 minutes.

*Since I do not have a wooden steamer at home, I made a makeshift steamer out of my cast iron skillet and lid, a few chopsticks, and a plate. I placed the skillet over the heat with a cup or so of water in it. I placed the chopsticks on the bottom of the pan, and balanced the plate (holding the dumplings) on top. I then brought the water to a boil, put a lid on the pan, and “steamed” the dumplings for 10 minutes. Worked like a charm.


Dipping Sauce
1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

1 tsp.sugar

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp.grated fresh ginger

1/4 cup chopped green onion

1/4 tsp crushed dried chili peppers

Mix all ingredients together and dip your dumplings to your hearts content.

See below for a wonderfully illustrated guide on how to fold Asian dumplings from Cooks Illustrated.