Homemade dumplings

Since we had those awesome dumplings at Frank's noodle house, I wanted to see if I can make them at home. The filling at Frank's is pork and chives. That's easy enough. Note what Chinese call chives is different from the common western herb. Chinese version is a lot more pungent when it's raw and is often used as a vegetable ingredient than a herb.

I made my filling with finely chopped chives (thanks to Jose and his sore wrist from chopping), ground pork, soy sauce, five spice powder and a dash of xiaoxing wine. I also added an egg for binding the ingredients together. I bought ready made wrappers to save time. I decided that we were going to boil them instead of pan searing or steaming in order to max the comfort factor. Nothing warms you up like a plate of just boiled dumplings.

They look really neat before cooking

Again it took me over two hours to make 50 dumplings. It barely took us 20 minutes to eat 30 of them. My filling isn't as soft as Frank's. Mine has higher meat-to-chives ratio (I sound like a nerd, I know), which might have contributed to the tougher texture. The store-bought wrappers are also inferior to home-made ones. But they are quite delicious indeed. For the amount of work I put in, this would remain an occasional indulgence.