Dumplings

I am getting to grips with Chinese-style dumplings, the ones filled with vegetables and minced pork and then steamed, boiled or fried. I think I have them pretty good now. I always seem to be lacking one ingredient or another when I'm making these, but somehow they always turn out OK. But maybe I'm kidding myself and my Dad would wrinkle his nose at them or laugh at me. I'll maybe write up a recipe one day, but that might be telling...

The ritual of chopping, mixing, making dough, rolling and filling is something best shared with other people. It's something I remember doing at home as a teenager with my parents teaching us how to make these little purses over the kitchen table. I never had the patience in those days to do very many, so I'd wander off after a while. It is the kind of thing, though, that brings with it that marvellous feeling of tradition and familial closeness, like pasta making, or the kneading of bread. And then you all sit down to eat it together, which surely is the best thing in the world.

So it is that with my surrogate family of university friends, some of my best memories are of the dumpling 'parties' we used to throw, sometimes with just my flatmates, other times with friends too. We used to gather in the kitchen whilst I made the mix for the filling and kneaded the dough for the cases, and then they would all have a go at filling them and striving to make the perfect shape, curved and pleated like a pair of plump horns. It would take so long that we wouldn't sit down to eat until late, slightly delirious with hunger, but it was always, always worth the wait. I would make a whole load of different dipping sauces and we'd steam piles of baby pak choi to eat with it. Even when we were all full up, if there were any left over there would always be room for a couple more.