manda

Golden Shopping Mall – Part II

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The saga continues!  After rounding up a group of our most adventurous friends, we came back to try more of the tasty food.  We had the tu dou tiao (cold potato slaw), niu rou mian (beef noodle soup), niu wei mian (oxtail soup), and more of the jiu cai he zi (chive pies) and yang rou jia bing (lamb burger).  The tu dou tiao ($3) was good and cold, crunchy, marinated in a little fish sauce (we think!), topped with a teeny bit of cilantro and pepper flakes.  The niu rou mian ($4.50) at Lanzhou Hand-made Noodles was amazing: freshly made thin noodles in a beefy soup along with thick yet tender slices of beef.  If you’re feeling dangerous, add in a few drops of the table chili oil.  Their niu wei mian ($5.50) was also good but the soup wasn’t as complex and the oxtail wasn’t as meaty.
We failed to snap a pic of the noodle dishes before we devoured them but there’s

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roxiao

Pork and Chive Dumplings

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So we had an earlier entry for pot stickers where I promised a recipe for dumplings later on.  Well, here it is!  This is a bit of a loaded entry in that it details prepping the ingredients for the dumplings, folding the dumplings, and cooking the dumplings.
Ingredients:

2 lbs ground pork
4 tbsp ginger
1 tsp cooking wine
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 egg
1 tbsp sesame oil
0.5 cup water
6 cups chopped chives
optional: 2 tbsp oil
2 packs of dumpling skins (dumpling! not wonton!)

Directions for the filling:

In a large bowl, add all ingredients except the chopped chives and the oil
Mix until all the ingredients have been incorporated
Let the meat mixture sit for a couple minutes to let the flavor settle in.  I usually take this time to chop the chives.
Slowly fold in the chives until the chives are evenly incorporated into the meat mixture.

Directions for making the dumpling:

Take a dumpling skin and brush some water around the circumference of the skin
Place one spoon of filling in the center of the skin
I will utterly fail at describing the folding method my mom taught me so I won’t even try.  Essentially, you just want to keep the dumpling sealed while you cook.  The easiest fold is just to fold the skin in half.  Make sure that you press the skin together firmly for a tight hold.

Directions for cooking the dumpling (if you want potsticker instead, reference this entry):

Bring water to a boil in a large pot.  How much water you use depends on how many dumplings you make.  The water should more than cover all the dumplings.
When the water is boiling, add the dumplings to the pot.
In the first half a minute, stir the dumplings around gently so that the dumplings don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
When the water comes to a boil again, add a cup of water.
Repeat step 4
Remove dumplings and serve!

This recipe will produce a relatively saltier dumpling that doesn’t really require dipping sauce of any kind.  At home, my parents usually just serve the dumplings with black vinegar.  I personally prefer a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and sriracha sauce.  There should only be a little sesame oil and you can add as much sriracha sauce as you want.  The ratio of soy sauce to vinegar depends on what kind of flavor you’re

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