Fried dumplings

For lunch I was craving fresh cut fries. Although I don’t have a frying pan; well I do have a frying pan, but I  retired it because it was such a hassle cleaning it every time, I do all my frying in a regular wok. It works perfect. You still have to clean it but it’s not so bad.

I pealed a whole bunch of potatoes and chopped them. I like thick fries, the hubby like thin fries. But if you want to fry it quick you want them thin, so thin fries it is.

I always fry my fries twice; one time to cook them and the second time to make them crispy. But it is very difficult to make crispy fresh fries; although I fried them twice they were still soft. The precut fries out of the freezer will always be crispy after frying them twice, so maybe freezing them is the key.

Anyway they were very tasty with a sprinkle of salt en pepper. Here in Holland we like to dip them in a mayonnaise/curry/tomato ketchup mixture sprinkled with some finely chopped raw onion. Well we actually don’t mix them but put the 3 sauces together in one bowl and put the onions on top. While eating you can either mix and match whatever you want. My hubby thought the combination was very odd, but it works. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Since my wok still had lots of oil and I hate it to go to waste I thought I use it one more time for frying some dumplings. I had a store bought dumpling package in the freezer which I defrosted so I had time to make the stuffing. 

I bought these beautiful fresh shiitake mushrooms for dinner and thought they would taste great in the dumplings.

I still had some minced chicken/turkey/all kinds of add-ons my sister bought earlier thinking it was minced chicken only, so I used that. One mistake she’ll never make again. I asked her to go and get minced chicken and she thought she did, because the label said so, but if you read the ingredient list it had all kind of other stuff in there. It wasn’t bad, but if you want to buy minced chicken you don’t expect it to have turkey meat and other stuff right? So if you buy stuff at the supermarket….always read the label so you know what’s in there!

To the meat I added some salt, grounded pepper, garlic powder, one fresh grated garlic, some sprinkles of sesame oil, one finely chopped onion and about 4 big shiitake mushrooms finely chopped. And I put a dash of Worcestershire sauce in there as well.

My sister was helping me in the kitchen with chopping onion and shiitake mushrooms, while I was cleaning and deveining the shrimps for dinner. I love shrimps in all sizes and shapes. I normally have a bag of fresh headless tiger shrimps in the freezer just in case I need it. I thought some shrimp would taste so good in the dumpling so I put some aside just for this.

 

My mother in law taught me to flatten the shrimp with a knife first before mincing it, so it would still be “chewy”.

I minced the shrimps as much as I could and put them in the bowl together with the meat. 

After I mixed everything together I thought some chopped spring onion would be nice so I added that and I also added some really finely diced fresh ginger. Now the stuffing was done.

I scooped a little bit of stuffing on the dumpling and use my finger to put some water on the outside.

I scooped a little bit of stuffing on the dumpling and use my finger to put some water on the outside. I folded it and made about 4 little “S-es” that I pressed together. I had to make sure there is no air inside and that everything is sealed.

I continued doing this till all the dumplings were stuffed.

Then I fried them in enough oil to cover at least one site. You really have to keep an eye on them because the brown very fast. And they splash a lot also so don’t come too close.

When they are golden brown get them out and put them on some paper towels so it can soak up some of the oil.

They are really good on their own, but can be dipped in some sweet and sour sauce as well.

Every bite had a burst of flavors! 

I still had some stuffing left so I stuffed it in some fried tofu and fried them right after the dumplings were done. Another great combination!