Thursday, August 2, 2012

Szechuan (Sichuan) Dumplings In Chili Oil

Live in California especially Bay Area, I believe everyone has tried some Chinese food. Dumpling is a very famous one, some people like to eat dumplings by dipping the spicy sauce. Spicy is one of the most important elements of Chinese food, and Szechuan is well-known as its spicy food. Today I would like to introduce you guys how to make Chinese dumplings with chili oil. 


According to Wikipedia, Szechuan cuisine often contains food preserved through picklingsalting, and drying and is generally spicy due to heavy application of chili oil. The Sichuan peppercorn huājiāo 花椒 ('flower pepper') is commonly used. Szechuan pepper has an intensely fragrant, citrus-like flavour and produces a "tingly-numbing" (Chinese: ) sensation in the mouth. Also common are garlicchili peppersgingerstar anise and other spicy herbs, plants and spices.

Ingredients:
  • Dumpling Dough
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 cup boiling water
         Filling:
  • 8 ounces celery cabbage (Napa cabbage)
  • 3 tsp salt, divided
  • 1 pound lean ground pork
  • 1/4 cup finely chopped green onions, with tops
  • 1 TB white wine
  • 1 tsp cornstarch
  • 2 tsp vegetable oil
  • Dash white pepper
  • some Sichuan peppercorn

Preparation:


1. Add vegetable oil into the pot. When the oil is still cold, add Sichuan 
 peppercorn and crushed pepper.

2. After frying, pour into a bowl.

3. Use a grinder to grind again.
 

4. Add vegetable oil agian.

5. Add in grinded Sichuan peppercorn and pepper to the cool oil.

6. After mixing, add some salt, spicies, and sesame. Mix.

 7. Prepare dumpling's filling materials. Mix ground pork, green onion, ginger,   and cabbage. The dumpling's skin was aleady made.

8-9.  Stir everything plus salt, soy sauce, white wine, and sesame oil. Make sure stir in  the same direction until the material is sticky.

10. Put the filling in the middle of the dumpling skin.(Not too much)

11. First hold between the fingers.

12. From the side, pinch once.

13-15. Continue pinching until it's fully closed.

 16. Turn on the stove to low fire. Put the made dumplings into the pot. Cook until the botton turns golden.

17. Add in water until the dumplings are half in the water.

18. Close the lid for 5 minutes. Fry until the water is gone. Use a small brush to brush a little bit of oil on the dumplings. Sprinkle some chopped green onion and sesame. Cook one more minute.

Last step: Take out the dumplings. Add some vineger into the chilli oil we made before, and enjoy!




I found some pictures from the internet showing how foreigners make the dumplings. The way they make it looks interesting. If you ate egg puffs before, you should notice that they are using the egg puffs mould to make these dumplings.


Here is a video from YouTube, I hope all of you learned how to make Chinese dumplings correctly after reading my blog post;) Enjoy!
 










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