Skip to main content

Dumplings and Dragons

‘Friends, Fiction, and food.’

To my mind there is no greater act of culinary devotion than making any kind of filled food, tortellini, pirogi, empanada or (as in our case) dumplings. When I was a younger man I was very interested in keeping my food somehow authentic a pure example of the cuisine they were part of and never mixing them I have here though abandoned this concept and present a kind of vaguely Asian good stuff stuffed in dumplings served with a sweet and hot sauce and wok fried greens.

This is a lot of stuff

The dumpling skins 
Save yourself a headache go to the closest (or your favorite) Asian supermarket and buy some.

Green and blacks
French fine beans (a bunch)
Fermented black beans (about a handful, you have to go to the Chinese supermarket anyway)
Garlic (5 cloves)
Soy sauce (dark or light, the world’s alright)
Butter (a knob)

  1. Process the french beans and garlic in a food processor. The add the black beans and process again.
  2. Heat up your wok. A wok should be hot. Stir fry the mixture.
  3. Add soy sauce to taste.
  4. Add butter at the end (fight me)
  5. Wrap in dumpling skins, doesn't matter as long as its sealed

Tibetan potato dumplings

Potatoes
Onion 
Coriander (fresh)
Garlic (some) (if you're also making the green and blacks omit this if you want)
Cheddar cheese (I really don't remember where I got this recipe from)
White pepper (½ teaspoon)
Cumin (2 teaspoon)
butter/oil


  1. Peel, chop and boil the potato
  2. Finely chop the onion and garlic then fry it in a mix of butter and oil your wok until it begins to color
  3. Finely chop the coriander and roughly chop the cheddar
  4. Mash everything together,
  5. Wrap in dumpling skins

Pork and prawn dumplings
(I’m vegetarian, and as such I wouldn't eat or cook this. Jordan made this filling)

Pork mince (equal to prawn)
Prawn (equal to pork)
Soy sauce (light)
Sesame oil
Chives (finely chopped, quite a lot)


  1. Process the pork and prawn in a food processor.
  2. Add a dash each of soy sauce and sesame oil
  3. Stir in the chives
  4. Chill
  5. Wrap in dumpling skins


Spring onion pancakes

Many years ago me and Jordan make a dumpling feast (just for the two of us) and i made some kind of onion pancake. I’m a better cook now i think this interpretation is good.

Egg
Flour
Water
Neutral oil
Spring onions (scallions,or green onions chopped extremely finely)


  1. Pour the flour onto a counter and form a volcano.
  2. Add an egg and incorporate into the flour, you’re looking for a stiff dough.
  3. Kneed for about 15 minutes until you get a very smooth dough.
  4. Fridge for at least half an hour.
  5. Cut into slightly larger than golf ball sized pieces.
  6. Roll it out until approximately a millimeter thick.
  7. Brush with neutral oil then scatter a good handful of onions onto the surface
  8. Fold the edges of the dough into the center so that there is none of the onion side showing.
  9. Roll out again to the size of your frying pan.
  10. Fry in oil.
  11. Serve as soon as possible, goes real well with the hot sauce.

Orange and chili sauce

Tomatoes
Garlic (not as a major taste)
Fresh oranges
Orange juice
Red chilies (to taste)
Soy sauce
Sugar


  1. Chop your tomatoes, garlic and chilies into chunks and put in a blender
  2. Add the zest and juice of an orange and a good slug of soy sauce to the blender
  3. Blend until a smooth sauce is formed
  4. Taste and balance with OJ, soy and sugar


Serve family style on the biggest table you can find along with wok fried greens, some kind of vegetable pickle, and a noisy room full of good friends.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pea and mint risotto

‘A sophisticated alternative to mushy peas.’ If I were inclined towards guilt one of my major guilty pleasures would be come dine with me. a trashy reality TV show where five people have dinner parties and slowly come to loathe each other over a week. In most cases the food is the least interesting part of the show being usually either disgustingly pretentious or just disgusting. However, on two occasions there were dishes that appeared on the show and have, after some experimentation, been added to my repertoire. This is an indulgent main to serve with goats cheese and any kind of beetroot salad or a truly decadent side dish for fish. The mint makes it if you don't have mint make something else, it’s foul without it. Pea and mint risotto part one (pea pesto) Frozen peas or broad beans (about 250g, peas if you’re making the risotto) Parmesan (one wedge from the supermarket) Mint (as much as you can me arsed to pick) Lemon (half zest, some of the juice, to taste) Salt (t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cheese Souflee

 'It's not posh I promise' ok I know its a soufflé and mostly you see them made by extremely high strung cartoon chefs and deflated by loud noises. and I know French food is often seen as fussy and intricate. My experience of French food is quite different.  My mum traveled to France as a young woman and waiting at a ferry terminal for a bus to Dijon looked for a cookbook for French foods to cook at her friends farm house. she had the good fortune to pick up an unfussy volume of what was mostly French peasant cuisine.  We still eat meals from it (including our now traditional Christmas eve boeuf bourguignon).  growing up we used to have cheese soufflé to use up odds and ends of cheese or to 'tart up a salad' mom makes it now with absolutely no measurements of any kind. serve this with French salads (we have a remoulade, a cucumber crème fresh salad, and a grated carrot, cumin and parsley salad here) This is based on the recipe that is in moms cook book, I've bas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Shakshuka

  'The perfect brunch' Shakshuka has its origins in the middle East. but in our family it's a traditional breakfast for birthday weekends away.  It's indulgent but easy. We did a couple of bits to make it a bit extra but it is essentially a very simple tomato and egg afair.  Ingredients An egg per person  Tomatoes (nice ripe fresh ones, you live or die on your tomatoes rough chop) Peppers (two, red and/or yellow, rough chop)  Onions (finely diced)  Cumin  Paprika  Chilli flakes  Salt  Olive oil  In an oven safe skillet soften your onions in the olive oil. When your onions are soft scatter in a teaspoon or two of cumin sautee for a few minutes until fragrant.  Add your peppers, a shake of chilli flakes and a good teaspoon of paprika sautee for a few minutes then add the tomatoes.  Let the tomatoes break down and reduce until the consistency is saucy.  Break the eggs into our shackshuka and throw the whole poodle into t...
Post a Comment
Read more