Chinese pork dumplings

The first time my wife and I threw a party together, we each prepared a number of dishes. She claimed she wasn't much of a cook, I claimed I was. We were both wrong. I made a large spread of dishes, she made one dish. Her one dish was the hit of the evening. Chinese pork dumplings.

As scientists, we have the privilege of working with people from all over the world. This recipe comes from a Chinese post-doctoral fellow that we worked with in the late 1990s. It's pretty simple to make, and people *just love* it.

2 lb ground pork

1 tbsp salt
2 tsp sesame oil
4 tbsp or more soy sauce
1 head Chinese cabbage, finely chopped
8 green onions, cut finely
4 grated carrots
4 eggs
~ ½ - 1 C flour (to dry out filling)
wonton wrappers

Chop the vegetables finely.

Mix.

Mix in the pork by hand.

Add the flour until thickened to the point that it's no longer runny. You just want enough to absorb the free liquid.

Pick up a wonton wrapper, and dip your finger into a dish of water. Gently run your finger around the edge of the wonton wrapper (this will be the "glue" to seal the wrapper). Scoop enough pork mix into the wrapper that it will be a tight fit to get it all in there. Free flappy dough isn't delicious, you want it to be full.

Pull one corner across the wonton to the opposite corner.

Seal the edges.

And set the dumpling aside.

Meanwhile, get a large pot, half full of water, boiling. Drop the dumplings into the boiling water.

As you add the dumplings, the water will stop boiling. When it comes to a boil, add 2 cups of cold water to the pot. This will stop the boiling. Repeat this two more times so that the dumplings come to a boil three separate times. Remove the dumplings from the boiling water.

Now, quickly mix up a dipping sauce. Pour sesame oil on a plate. Drizzle on some soy sauce, and drop a glorp of sambal olek (Asian hot sauce) in the middle.

Dip the dumplings in this sauce.

Crazy delicious. Porkish. Deliciousish. Perfect.

We'll make a bunch in advance, boil twice and remove to freeze. Boil one more time to serve. That way you can make this amazing delicious thing weeks in advance, and still be able to serve yummy homemade pork dumplings while taking care of other dishes. Yum.