Chinese Dough meets ... Challenge!

[GotGarlic]

Originally Posted by outRIAAge

I was the one complaining that it's no fun to use pre-made wrappers, and I was dreaming of Mediterranean potstickers using my newly-invented grape-leaf dough, but I completely take your point. Restrictions don't limit creativity, they enhance it.

For example: the villanelle, which is probably the most extreme and arbitrary-sounding set of restrictions of all poetic forms, and yet Dylan Thomas came up with "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", which is only improved by hewing to the supposedly-arbitrary form.

SO: Only pre-made wrappers allowed. Everybody agree?

How about this? *You* are only allowed to participate if you make your own wrappers, filling and sauce. Everyone else can choose to use a pre-made wrapper. I think everyone will agree.

[outRIAAge]

Originally Posted by GotGarlic

How about this? *You* are only allowed to participate if you make your own wrappers, filling and sauce. Everyone else can choose to use a pre-made wrapper. I think everyone will agree.

Pretentious? Moi?

[medtran49]

I'll answer for her, though she, of course, is welcome to add. No, just a low tolerance for......

[GotGarlic]

Originally Posted by medtran49

I'll answer for her, though she, of course, is welcome to add. No, just a low tolerance for......

Aw, medtran, you know me so well

[Cooksie]

Haven't posted here for quite a while, but I'll participate. I love this sort of challenge. It makes me think outside the box.

[medtran49]

As I wrote previously, we went with a Korean fusion. Used 2 homemade kimchis tailored to each combo.

First, Cuban Sandwich. Used a pretty basic kimchi recipe but added more cucumber for the pickles used in the sammie. Next time, I'll use a lot more cukes and less cabbage I think, maybe a little less gochugaru and more cumin. Filling was ground pork, ham, swiss cheese, some tamari, sesame oil, more cumin, S and P. Sauce was rice wine vinegar, sugar, garlic, red pepper flakes brought to a boil, cooled, lime juice and cilantro.







Next, Cajun/Creole/Low Country andouille, shrimp and grits. Kimchee had the trinity and some grits (some kimchis use rice), as well as homemade Creole spice from Paul Prudhomme's mix. Filling was ground pork, andouille, shrimp, red bell pepper, kimchi, a bit of tamari (instead of soy sauce), a bit of sesame oil, S and P. Sauce was a play on PP's brown sauce for fish.





Cooking in the pan.


Dinner is served!

[medtran49]

1/8 to 1/4 inch cubes of golden porky goodness ready to mix into the filling for Chinese soup dumplings in the next few days. Boy was it a relief when I checked the pan yesterday and it had gelled so nicely.

[Smokeydoke]

That looks great medtran49.

Is anyone else still doing this? I want to join in. Sounds like fun.

[GotGarlic]

I bought the wrappers, but haven't come up with a filling and sauce yet. I'm away from home till Friday, so I'll plan on doing something next week.

Would love to see more ideas for inspiration!

[medtran49]

Well, I'm not doing a fusion this time. Like I wrote in the dinner thread a couple of nights ago, I've wanted to make these soup dumplings Pork Soup Dumplings Recipe - Bon Appétit ever since I saw the article in the magazine.

I am, however, going to make the dough. We bought a flour mix that supposedly is the best for making buns on 1 of our recent trips to the Oriental market. It wasn't anymore expensive than regular flour or rice flour so I'm guessing (hoping) we weren't getting the run around. They seem pretty nice in that place, even though most of them don't speak English AT ALL. They'll run and get 1 of the 1 or 2 employees that does. Besides that, when we were checking out once, we were getting stuff to make sushi, besides restocking a couple of things we were out of, 1 of which was black vinegar. The lady checking us out stopped when she got to the black vinegar and said you aren't using this for sushi are you? We said no, that it was just to restock, though the other things were for sushi. She said "Oh, okay, just wanted to be sure."

Anyway, I've been watching the video on rolling out the dough and shaping (18 crimps is the magic number for the soup buns) so we'll see how I do. I've got the pot stickers down pat but I haven't had to make the dough and roll it out and then fill and shape the dumplings in a LONG time since I discovered the pre-made wrappers for pot stickers. Will be interesting.

Got some baby bok choy and shitake mushrooms to go with. Haven't decided yet whether to just serve them as a side or whether to try and make vegetarian dumplings with them. Guess I'll see how the main dish dumplings go first.

[Silversage]

Thanks for reviving this thread. I had forgotten about it, but I'm going to do something this week.

Thinking.......
Thinking.......
Thinking some more.........

[medtran49]

Well, like I wrote in the dinner thread, I'll be getting these in a restaurant from now on. It did take me a while to figure out how to get these pleated, and they still don't look that great even after doing 24 of them, and it took FOREVER. It looked easy in the video, not so much in real life, at least without a lot of practice. I started rolling out dough and shaping about 5:30 ish and we didn't eat until 7:00, and I NEVER stopped working on them. I know there's always a learning curve, but jeez louise. I still have another 24 to roll out and shape that will be going in the freezer. Several of them sprung a leak, some because I stretched the dough too much so that it was too thin and tore and/or poked it with a fingernail, and some because I forgot to spray the lettuce lining the steamer basked with cooking spray (recipe said to, I just was so tired and wanted to be done with it by then that I forgot, obviously there was a reason for it) and they stuck to the leaves. Even the ones that sprung a leak were pretty good, and every single one of them got eaten.

I didn't much like the sauce in the Bon Appetit recipe, WAY too much vinegar for me, but Craig thought it was pretty good.

I only took a pic of the dinner plate last night. I'll take a pic of a ready to shape one later today when I finish them up for the freezer.

Obviously, if you aren't doing a recipe that needs a yeast-dough wrapper, I'd recommend you go with the frozen wrappers you can buy in Oriental markets. Unfortunately, the ones in the markets around here aren't quite as big as what the recipe called for. Guess I could just use a smaller amount of filling and I may do just that today if I will have some wrappers in the freezer instead of messing with rolling out 24 more little circles. We'll see. Having the wrappers already made is a HUGE plus in my book.

[medtran49]

Oh, I did find a little tip about the filling while doing these. Mix the filling as little as possible as over-mixing causes it to become dense and tough.

[Smokeydoke]

Looks beautiful medtran

[Cooking Goddess]

Those are so cute, medtran! They look like they are a lot of work. It took me forever the first time I made my own pot stickers. It also was my last time. I think it's gonna stay that way...

[medtran49]

Thanks ladies, but I think they are a bit rough looking. At least they tasted good.

CG, I encourage you to try again with the premade wrappers. I've made the potstickers enough that I can fill and shape 50 in just over a-half hour using a tablespoon scoop and making them assembly line style in batches. Once you get the pleating down it goes fast.

I ended up freezing the rest of the filling, just didn't feel like messing with them again tonight.

[Cooking Goddess]

That's OK, medtran, if I'm going to practice stuffing something properly, I think I'll first work on pierogis. They're basically Polish pot stickers anyway! I have made fresh spring rolls several times since my first fight with the wraps, and I'm no longer clumsy with that rice paper. Baby steps.

I know you mentioned using gyoza wrappers when I tried making pot stickers that one time. It's on my list. We just haven't taken the 64 miles drive, give or take five miles depending on which route you take, to the Asian grocery store we like. There are a couple closer, but they're tiny and smell...odd. And not in a good way "odd".

[Dawgluver]

I dunno, medtran, they look pretty dang good to me. But I certainly understand why you want pre-made wrappers. What a pain.

[Silversage]

I did this tonight!

I had some Chinese bao in the freezer, so I steamed some of those puffy little taco shaped buns.

The fushion came from duck confit (french), pickled watermelon rind (American south), Chinese barbecue sauce, peanuts (more Thai than Chinese), cilantro (almost everywhere).

On the side we had some leftover pistachio apricot quinoa (north African).

Very tasty morsels.
I'll post some pics later.

[medtran49]

Sounds good SilverSage. Can't wait for pics.