I love holding dinner parties because it means I get to try new recipes and perfect old recipes. It also means I can justifiably cook enough to feed a small army.
This past weekend, I held a dinner party featuring some traditional Chinese dishes, such as:
- hand-made pot stickers (pork and green onion dumplings)
- duck (in my case, chicken) stewed in beer
- Kung Pao chicken
- fried eggs and tomato
Dumplings (jiao zi) originate from the northern regions of China where rice is less common. Although they are considered an appetizer or “dim sum” in North America, they are actually a lone entree in China, especially during family gatherings, where everyone can help make the jiao zi before they are steamed. Savoury fillings usually consist of ground pork with some sort of vegetable, such as Chinese cabbage and chives. Mushrooms and other fungi family ingredients are sometimes included to enhance the savoury flavour. Dumplings are typically steamed, but a pot sticker is fried “on the bottom” and steamed “on top.”
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