Making Dumplings

  I had the opportunity to help in the making of dumplings. During the National Holiday I was invited to visit a teacher's family in the countryside. She is also the teacher that picked me up from my hotel in Shanghai and helped me with everything really. I was honored to go with her, her husband, and their eight-year-old daughter to the rural outskirts of Changzhou. This teacher was from a family of three children. She had a sister and brother which is more unusual in general but more common in the rural and older generations. Her parents made their livelihood by growing and selling planet: bushes, flowers, tree, etc.
  While I was there it was suggested that maybe I would like to help them make Dumplings to which I heartily agreed. After our trip to the nearby town to see the plant shops, which is what the area is know for, I was taken to the kitchen to begin my lesson on dumplings. I did not make them from scratch start to finish, what I learned was how to shape them. The dough was pre-made and bought from a shop in town and the teacher's mother had made the meat filling. Below you can see me spooning the filling onto a special shaped dough. For these dumplings the dough was cut into the shape of a triangle with its top cut off. The filling was positioned near the top of the triangle and the dough was folded over this filling. It was rolled one and a half time. You then brought the ends together, wetting you finger with water to use a glue, connecting the opposite sides. It was not that difficult but without being shown I would not have had the slights clue regarding how the shape was to be formed.

  Below are completed dumplings. Following their shaping they were submerged into boiling water for about 10 minuted then removed and were able to be eaten. We consumed them for diner that evening, and I will have to hand it to the cook for they were quite delicious. I did not leave the house that evening without being offered and given dumplings to take home and eat.