Side Dishes

Chinese Pork and Chive Dumpling Recipe

January 30, 2013 by Betty

I love Chinese dumplings. In fact, one of the things that I look forward to whenever I visit San Francisco is devouring some of the yummiest Chinese dumplings. To help us celebrate Chinese New Year, I decided to give it a shot at making my own dumplings. This is called jiaozi in Chinese. This is a real easy recipe and the clan rolled up their sleeves and got involved. They even turned some into playdough, but that’s another story.

We made two batches: one with unbleached white flour and the other with half whole wheat and half white. My kids loved both. For the mixed flour batch, see notes below. Here’s what we did for the white flour ones:

Ingredients: (for the filling)

1/2 pound ground pork
1 cup of chopped Chinese chives (also known as garlic chives or Chinese leeks)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon rice wine
A few dashes of white pepper powder
5 drops of sesame oil

For the skin:

2 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 cups water

Instructions:

Mix the flour with water and knead it for about 20-25 minutes or until the dough gets soft. Separate the dough into two equal portions and roll them into cylinders (about 1 inch in diameter). Cover them with wet towel and set aside.

Prepare the chives by chopping off the root (white part) of the chives. Use only the green part. Chop chives into small sections. Mix the chives with ground pork and add all the seasonings. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes or more.

To prepare the skin, cut the dough into 1/8 to 1/4 in. length. (closer to 1/8 if you prefer thinner skin)On a floured surface, using a rolling pin, flatten the dough until it becomes a round skin about 3 inch in diameter.

Put about 1 Tbsp of filling into the center of the skin and seal it up tightly with your fingers. Seal skin with water if needed.

Heat up a pot of water on high until it boils. Drop the dumplings into the boiling water and bring water back to a boil.

Cover the pot and turn heat to medium for about 5 minutes.

When dumplings are done, scoop them out on a serving plate. Serve hot with Homemade Ponzo Sauce or Orange-Ginger Dipping Sauce or your favorite vinegar-based dipping sauce.

Enjoy!

Notes: For one cup of white and one cup of whole wheat flour, I used 1/2 cup water plus 2 Tbsp more. The rest of the instructions are the same as above. Dumplings could be made ahead for freezing. I freezed a batch on my cookie sheet then stored in ziplock bags once they are frozen. Cooking time is slightly longer for frozen ones.

Here’s Chico and Mei Mei attempting to help.

Chico and Mei Mei decided to have some fun and made some playdough instead.

Buddy rolling out the semi-whole wheat dough.

Here’s our dumplings made with white flour.

Filed Under: Main Dishes, Side Dishes Tagged With: Chinese chives, Chinese leeks, dumplings, garlic chives, pork, sesame

How to Cook Quinoa

January 15, 2013 by Betty

Quinoa has become a stable in our family for the last couple of years. You might have read some of my quinoa posts in the past. But if you’re new here, you might want to check out some of my yummy quinoa recipes: Quinoa Black Bean Salad and Easy Peruvian Quinoa Chowder. Since our love for quinoa is a growing one, I felt that it deserves a proper introduction!

Quinoa (pronounced Kin-wah) looks and tastes like a grain, but it’s not a grain? Quinoa is closely related to the spinach and beet family that contain antioxidants, heart-healthy fats, and calcium. It’s also high in protein. It can be eaten like rice or barley, but of course, in a hearty soup or salad, quinoa could be served as a standalone meal.

How to cook quinoa:

The ratio of quinoa to water is 1 to 2.

For example:

To cook 1 cup of quinoa, add 2 cups of water to sauce pan.
To cook ½ cup of quinoa, add 1 cup of water to sauce pan.

Rinse quinoa before cooking. Put quinoa and water into a pot and bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer at low heat until quinoa absorbs all the water, about 12-15 minutes. Then remove from heat. Keep the lid covered and let it sit for about 5 minutes.

Yield:

1/2 cup of uncooked quinoa makes 2 cups cooked.

1 cup of uncooked quinoa makes 4 cups cooked.

Note: you can substitute water with chicken or vegetable broth.

Filed Under: Side Dishes Tagged With: how to cook quinoa

Quinoa Black Bean Salad

October 24, 2012 by Betty

My kids love going to Costco and New Seasons, our local whole foods store. Do you know why? It’s not for the prices and it’s certainly not for the selection. Yup, you might have guessed it, it’s for the food tasting stations. My three year old, Mei, reminds me every time that they have stuff for you to try. Well, on one occasion, we tried a quinoa black bean salad. After trying a few other versions and tweaking them, here’s my version of Quinoa Black Bean Salad.

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 cups water
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ cup dried black beans, soaked and cooked or 1 15-oz can black beans drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted or 1 cup of fresh corn lightly cooked
4 medium tomatoes, seeded and cut into chunks (save seed content for juicing or smoothies)
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped (Optional)
¼ cup Italian parsley
3 Tbsp olive oil
¼ cup diced red onion: (Optional)

Instructions:

Put rinsed quinoa, water and salt into pot and bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer until quinoa absorbs all the water, about 12-15 minutes. Then remove from heat, covered and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Transfer quinoa to a big bowl and let it cool.
While the quinoa is cooling, put chopped onion into lime juice and set aside if you’re planning to add onion. If skipping onion, leave the lime juice alone.
Mix together black beans, corn, tomatoes, jalapeno, parsley and oil into a big bowl.
When quinoa is cool, scoop into salad bowl with beans. Add cumin. At this point, add onion with lime juice or simply add lime juice if skipping onion. Mix well.
Add more sea salt and lime juice to taste.
Serve straight from the fridge or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Notes:

If your kids don’t eat spicy, split quinoa salad into two batches before adding jalapeno and the same rule applies to onions as well. If you prefer, 2 Tbsp chopped green onion could be used instead of onion.

Recipe adapted from New Season’s deli quinoa black bean salad.

Do you have your favorite version of quinoa black bean salad or other quinoa recipes? Do share them in the comments section because I love to try more recipes.

For quinoa soup, read Easy Peruvian Quinoa Chowder. New to quinoa? Check out my post How to Cook Quinoa.