However, as with all my culinary spatterings, each new iteration is an improvement (or an attempt at improvement) upon a previous one.
:)
I had some leftover chicken from somewhere... I forget where... the Wife has a strange and difficult to understand penchant for buying roast chickens. Like whole, roast chickens. I never ask her to, and every time she comes home with one I ask her if she knows how bad they are (both for us and for the chicken!) but she never seems to care.
Personally I blame her (equally prevalent) penchant for doing the grocery shopping while hungry. :)
Anyway, I took the leftover chicken, and mixed it with some fresh green kale, some onion, garlic, and ginger, and a pinch of white pepper and salt.
Mmmmmm... looks kind of like vomit.
;)
The dumplings are the fun part. And surprisingly easy to make!
Rather than make them like 'wraps' or delicate little pouches, this time I decided to just go full bore on a round dumpling style.
When they were all assembled, I brushed them lightly with some sesame oil,
And then fried them lightly in a frying pan.
After turning them over several times to brown each side, I poured in about 100 ml of filtered water, and then quickly covered them.
This was a step I did not do in previous iterations of these dumplings, and I found that it is essential in getting that typical, attractive, soft and moist dumpling look:
Glistening with moisture, and yet golden brown, these dumplings were soft and chewy rather than crispy and dry. And so delicious!
Obviously the above technique involved a couple of batches, but if I had a huge wok or something it might be doable in one batch? In any case, though, it is not hard to do them in several batches.
I also made up some green beans and a dipping sauce (for both the dumplings and the beans) made out of soya sauce, sesame oil, and a few green onions and bits of chili pepper.
They aren't always, but this particular attempt was a definite improvement upon previous Asian-styled dumplings like this, and will surely get filed towards any future attempts!
