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Today, again my eating habits went off the beaten Mc-path. I went to a jiaozi making party. Spring Festival AKA Chun Jie AKA the Chinese new Years is just around the corner and making jiaozi is as traditional as green jello and bananas at Thanksgiving. You dab a little of the filling on a piece of rice dough, use a little water to seal the edges, pulling the edges to the middle then crimping. This thousand year old recipe sounds simple enough for a two year old to do…
…or an American.
Here are instructions from Chef Jacob.
First, play a little patty cake.
Squish it into your hand and be tempted to lick the raw pork off your fingers until your Mom stops you.
Then you show her your masterpiece…
Jiaozi got their named because they are supposed to be horn shaped. The Chinese word for “horn” is jiao. Well, here are the ones made by mom….
And Mom’s mom…
Now here are the ones made by guess who.
Afterwards, we indulged in stuffing ourselves with the dumplings, some of the steamed, some fried, along with slices of beef dipped into a peanut sauce (very similar to the satay sauce you get an a Thai restaurant).
The stuffing for jiaozi varies in different regions of China. Mostly, it’s a mixture of ground pork and chopped chives hidden inside a transluscent rice flour dough.
Or with Jacob, maybe a bit of lint.
I don’t think Jacob will win an appearance of the Next Top Chef.
But hey, you never know.
It is day two of my Chinese food log, which gets lost in translation to those fluent in Weight Watcher-ese.
As I said in the previous post, I thought my eating habits were boring until I started writing them down. Today, I ate more than normal, but still a variety of “Chinese normal”.
Anyway, I started the day with a glass of freshly squeezed Michigan Orange Juice (the infamous Chinese Great Lakes Brand) and a bowl of honey nut cheerios topped with shelf stable milk. We buy the French brand at close to 3 bucks a pop, thinking it would taste a bit better. It’s still is on the sour side.
I decided to get out so I peddled my bike to Café Luku for a cup of latte. If you recognize the name, café luku is the East Timor name for the coffee made from beans squirted out of a Civet’s butt. I’ll stick to a latte , please.
After running a few errands in down town Kunming, I couldn’t resist a bucket of street fries. The Chinese street vendors do potatoes better than McDonald’s, peppering up the taste with loads of spices and chives.
However, I resisted buying water at the corner drink-lingerie stand.
I was still hungry, so I mozied over to Meet Fresh to get a Taiwan dessert soup. It sounds weird, but so does a Twinkie when you think about it. But imagine a Frappuccino splashed over assorted slabs of rice jello (pictured at the top). It sounds weird, but I’m addicted.
I ended up getting a cup of hot red rice tea. It tastes like a thick vanilla milk shake except it’s rice…hot…and uh, purple.
After all of those binge indulgences, I find something really weird to nosh on in China:
Burger King. Coming soon to Kunming.