boiled jiaozi for the Chinese new year

cooking jiaozi, 5 by kattebelletje.

Happy Chinese new year, everyone! Traditionally, you have to eat jiaozi [boiled dumplings with a filling of pork] on New Year's eve. This time it was very easy; I used ready made dumpling skins from the store (from Korea, they were, the Chinese store only stocked wonton wrappers), and the filling I took ready made from the freezer, since I made jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) a couple of weeks before. With the egg timer, I proved you can make about 15 jiaozi in 10 minutes. (View my Flickr jiaozi set here to see the whole procedure)

The ready-made jiaozi wrappers are made from a mixture of flour and cornstarch, they have a much drier feel than home-made ones. Therefore you need to dip your fingertips in water and wetten the edges before pinching them close. This makes shaping the jiaozi a bit tiresome, but of course it is better than starting from scratch if you don't have time and just want to eat it as a snack!

After wrapping, boil the jiaozi in boiling water and cook until done (when the water comes to a boil, add a cup of cold water, then wait until it comes to a boil again and repeat, after 3 times the jiaozi are said to be done. You can see it when they float on top and look shiny. Serve in small bowls with Yinyin sauce on top; the filling is hearty, the jiaozi hot and succulent, and the sauce spicy and truly delicious. Don't stop eating!

Yinyin sauce

yinyin sauce by kattebelletje.

I can't help myself, ever so often I just NEED to eat jiaozi, Chinese dumplings. Or the fried kind, called guotie or potstickers. I put in the usual chopped pork, chinese cabbage, ginger, soaked dried shiitake mushroom, shredded spring onion and soy sauce and sesame oil for the filling, but added an extra leaf or two of the cime di rape I had a couple of days before. That made it really tasty!! I fried them in a pan but they stuck a little to well to the bottom.

Anyway, I made a salad like I had in Beijing: with a sauce of vinegar and sugar, plus an extra tablespoon dark Chinese vinegar. I soaked the cucumber in this vinaigrette for half an hour and added shredded lettuce and fried peanuts. Now for the jiaozi-sauce, I was taught this by a Chinese friend who cooks extremely well, and my family has called this sauce 'Yinyin sauce' ever since.

First make a hot sauce by putting dried chili pepper flakes, white sesame seeds, a little salt and a handful of huajiao (Sichuan pepper) in a fireproof bowl. Heat oil until really hot and pour carefully on the mixture; it will look like it will explode and a lot of hot steam escapes. Careful! When cooled off, you will have a dark red spicy oil. For the Yinyin sauce, mash 2 cloves of garlic, add 4 tablespoons or so of sugar, add as much dark Chinese aromatic vinegar until all the sugar is absorbed - stir, then add soy sauce and 3 or more tablespoons of the hot chili oil. Taste for spicyness and adapt to your liking. It tasted extremely well with the just fried potstickers and the salad will cool you off. Powerful.

potstickers (guotie)

guotie by kattebelletje.

Making guotie (potstickers, gyoza) is a quite long affair! Made from scratch, they taste delightful. Prepare a dough from flour and water, roughly ration 2 to 1. Knead until supple and leave to rest for half an hour.

Meanwhile, prepare a filling with a food processor: mince fatty striped pork and a about 1cm of ginger until completely smooth. Put into a bowl and add water in which you have soaked shiitake dried mushrooms (the black Chinese mushroom you can buy in Chinese shops). Add water, soy sauce and rice wine; add salt to taste. Add sesame oil. Add chopped spring onion, chopped shiitake and, optional, some chopped cooked spinach. Also, add chopped Chinese cabbage, after squeezing all water out. Stir this filling until smooth.

Now shape the dough into small rounds with a wooden rolling pin and put your filling in the centre. Fold the dumpling in the typical half moon shape and leave on a bamboo jiaoziboard (or plate dusted with flour). For dumplings or jiaozi, cook in water; but for panstickers fry in oil in a pan, then add water, wait until all water has evaporated and fry intil crispy on the bottom and succulent in the centre. Enjoy with a hot sauce or just plain Chinese vinegar. See more photos on Flickr.