It's dumpling town.

You know when it's a Saturday and you wake up with the need to make dumplings and some other person makes an executive decision to have a nice, random number of nine people around that you're going to be folding a hundred dumplings in the afternoon after being a human food processor.

That may be a slight exaggeration.

You may also notice that the photos get blurrier and blurrier as we drink more and more. We made Negronis in jugs, drank beers by slabs, vodka from the bottle and suckled on the lips of sparkling white wine bottles.

And then, a charming little Christobel had alcohol poisoning.

Dumplings and shit
makes 100

400g pork mince
400g chicken mince
300g prawns, deveined and roughly chopped
2 handfuls black fungus, shredded and hydrated in boiling water
6 shitake mushrooms rehydrated in boiling water and diced (reserve water)
1 can of water chestnuts, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
ginger, finely diced, to taste
6 spring onions, finely diced
soy sauce
white pepper
salt
sugar
sesame oil
2 egg whites
cornflour
2 packets of wonton skins

Mix together all the ingredients except for the cornflour and won ton skins. Make a dish with cornflour and water and wrap in the skins, using the cornflour mixture to seal.

For Soup

water from the rehydrated mushrooms
salt
white pepper
soy
oyster sauce
sugar
sesame oil
5 slices of ginger
3 litres of water
sliced spring onions
spinach
baby bok choi
gai larn

fresh egg noodles or flat rice noodles

Boil the mushroom water and adjust seasoning to taste with the extra 3 litres of water and ginger. When ready to serve, cook off the noodles, the vegetables and plate up with garnishes (I made chive omelets and crisped up won ton skins and crushed them over the top for texture) .

This is everything that goes in the dumperin' in a bowl ready to be mixed up. I tested it for seasoning by frying off a tablespoon and trying it.

Getting ready to wrap. the wet tea towel to cover the skins so they don't dry out. A bowl of cornflour mixed with cold water to use as "glue" to keep the skins together.

A folded plate. We had to clear out the fridge and freezer to keep these suckers ready for cooking.

The dumplings in the container are those getting ready to be fried. And, the prepped vegies.

And a different angle, just because I can't be bothered editing what is here.

I made chive omlettes, rolled them up and sliced them for garnish.



Me on the phone while plating up the first round of fried-s. "Yeah, no, really, up the back staircase and get some booze. No, lots of booze."
Fry one side in a pan with ginger, flip when it looks crispy, add water, cover with the lid and steam for a minute.

Plating up the dumpling noodle soup.

My trusty camera-man...kind of drunk by this time. I really like how we had 3 different kinds of chili to eat with. Of course, there is now none left.
I cooked off the noodles in one pot, the vegetables in the other and the won tons in another separate pot. I kept the soup hot in another pot and just added them all together at the end, building it up and finishing it with the garnishes. Booyah!


And at the very end, this man is wearing my dress. Yes, it is just as see-through on me and um...guess what I am wearing?