Chinese Water Dumplings (shui jiao)

[QSis]

Well, Carol, that was a VERY interesting link! Jiaozi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia They look so good!

No wonder I can't find Peking raviolis in any of my Chinese cookbooks, and why internet friends don't know what I'm talking about: the phrase was coined by Joyce Chen for her restaurant in Cambridge, MA. !

Now I'm going to look for the correct wrappers (I've always wrapped stuff in wonton wrappers) at the Asian supermarket in my store.

My friends and I have copies of the book 1,000 Chinese Recipes. I'm going through it, page by page, marking possibilities for our feast. We are looking mainly at finger foods, but there are so many great looking dishes that it's going to be tough to narrow down our choices!

Oh, and I can't find Crab Rangoon and Scallion Pancakes in my book either. What else can I look under?

Thanks for the helpful tips, everyone!

Lee

[BreezyCooking]

Although I haven't made these yet, I do have all the ingredients on hand & might give them a whirl this weekend. Although obviously not "authentic", since Crab Rangoons are fried rather than baked, the ingredients are still very similar to what the restaurants use, & I'm willing to try anything that doesn't force me to deep-fry, which I HATE - lol! You might not find Crab Rangoon in many real Chinese cookbooks because it's really an Americanized invention.

Baked Crab Rangoons

RecipeDetail

[plumies]

Originally Posted by QSis

Oh, and I can't find Crab Rangoon and Scallion Pancakes in my book either. What else can I look under?
Lee

Let me look in my recipe books tonight for a scallion pancake recipe. Oddly enough, we rarely had these at home and always went out for them on weekends. Nothing comes to mind other than dim sum dishes for finger foods but let me do some searching and see what I've got.

One thing to consider if you can find it near you is to get some Chinese bbq pork (char siu) or Chinese roast duck to go with the scallion pancakes. And if you're up to it, you can even make either of these meat dishes yourself.

[plumies]

QSis, I looked through all my Chinese cookbooks but couldn't find a recipe for scallion pancakes. Found one for flour buns but no pancakes. But I found a recipe by Ming Tsai on Food Network that sounds similar to how my uncles used to make them in the restaurants. I think the instructions on how to form the pancake is better from his ming.com website. Yum, I might have to make some this weekend.

As for finger foods, I found 2 recipes that might be of interest. One is for Crispy Shrimp Ball and another one for Sesame Shrimp Roll. Let me know if you're interested in either.

[QSis]

Thank you, plumies!!! I have a recipe for Deep-Fried Crabmeat Balls already earmarked.

Am also thinking about chicken wings, "barbecued" pork strips (I've made char sui many times), braised chicken balls, something called "Gold Coin Pork" (involves skewering stuff and deep-frying it), and braised beef short-ribs.

As well as rangoon and egg rolls. I want pu-pu platter type stuff.

My friends ALSO want egg foo yung, some sort of moo shu, and some kind of lo mein. And maybe rice. I love all those things, but I REALLY love picking at finger foods, rather than eating a sit-down dinner with bowls and plates!

There's also a recipe for a salad of smashed radishes and smashed cucumber chunks. Smashed so that the marinade can penetrate. I definitely want THAT!

But I've only made it through about 500 of the 1,000 recipes in the book

This is going to be SO fun!!!

I may have to PM you, plumies, when I get in over my head!

Lee

[plumies]

Oh, I'm so hungry now.