Dumplings are a bit of a Shanghainese delicacy. All over Shanghai you can have dumplings from the top restaurants to street stalls where you might pay 50p for six! The traditional Shanghainese dumpling is a steamed soup dumpling which consits of a doughy outer filled with a delicious pork mixture and a soup. They can be messy to eat and there is skill involved as you suck the soup out before eating the rest. Needless to say it's quite obvious when Oliver and William have been eating them! There are then many variations on these, some have different fillings and others have more of a bready outer shell covered with sesame seeds. Some have a sweeter soup which didn't appeal at first but when combined with the wrapper and pork goes very well! However they come they are delicious!
I was delighted when Xiaolan's friend told me that she makes excellent dumplings. I asked her to show me how she makes them. The first time she made them we were away and came home to a freezer full, she was a bit put out that we hadn't eaten them all until I explained that we like to have them every so often and not ten each in one sitting!
The next time I asked her to make them I said that we wanted to learn. She made up the pork mixture with minced pork, cabbage and scrambled egg. Plus the all important ginger! She doesn't make the wrappers herself they come from a local shop and you buy a big stack of them. Xiaolan then showed us all how to get a circular wrapper, put some pork in the middle and shape it in to a mini pasty shape.
We all had a go and just about got the hang of it, although I am not sure ours were quite as neat as Xiaolan's.
During this dumpling session our gateman delivered us some more water. He thought it was hilarious that we were all sitting round making dumplings and before we knew what was happening he'd washed his hands and was joining in! He proceeded to make moneybag shapes - that's how his mother did it!
After about a hour we had a huge amount of dumplings. They were then frozen. We had so many that we even cooked up a batch for all of the gatemen and some for Gao Yi! Oliver and William really enjoyed doing it, although we did have to keep reminding them not to eat the raw pork! I am sure that once the huge dumpling mountain in the freezer is gone it will be time to make some more.
I was delighted when Xiaolan's friend told me that she makes excellent dumplings. I asked her to show me how she makes them. The first time she made them we were away and came home to a freezer full, she was a bit put out that we hadn't eaten them all until I explained that we like to have them every so often and not ten each in one sitting!
The next time I asked her to make them I said that we wanted to learn. She made up the pork mixture with minced pork, cabbage and scrambled egg. Plus the all important ginger! She doesn't make the wrappers herself they come from a local shop and you buy a big stack of them. Xiaolan then showed us all how to get a circular wrapper, put some pork in the middle and shape it in to a mini pasty shape.
We all had a go and just about got the hang of it, although I am not sure ours were quite as neat as Xiaolan's.
During this dumpling session our gateman delivered us some more water. He thought it was hilarious that we were all sitting round making dumplings and before we knew what was happening he'd washed his hands and was joining in! He proceeded to make moneybag shapes - that's how his mother did it!
After about a hour we had a huge amount of dumplings. They were then frozen. We had so many that we even cooked up a batch for all of the gatemen and some for Gao Yi! Oliver and William really enjoyed doing it, although we did have to keep reminding them not to eat the raw pork! I am sure that once the huge dumpling mountain in the freezer is gone it will be time to make some more.
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