ideas and inspirations: dumpling day!

ugh.  making dumplings, as yummy as they are, is often a real chore.  Last time my partner and I made them we were almost cross-eyed by the end of the adventure.

I've been tossing up an idea for a little while as to whether making it a family and friends adventure might make the chore a bit more fun and this week I put it into practice, inviting family and friends over for dumpling day!  

The set up was pretty basic, I sent everyone a couple of different recipes I'd sourced off the web (including my one, available here).  They brought along the major ingredients, a mixing bowl and containers to store the prepared dumplings in and I provided some of the ingredients that aren't worth buying for a single use (shaoxing wine, soy sauce, etc.) and some banana cake (for energy).

It was a fantastic success!  Between five of us, we made about 250 dumplings of three different types.  I made my chicken mince dumplings, my soon-to-be sister-in-law made a chicken and pork mixture and my mother, always different, made prawn.  The whole thing kept us busy for most of the afternoon but it was NOwhere near as tedious as previous adventures.  And to show for it, I have about 100 of my own dumplings, plus some of everyone else's to sample!

We're thinking about making it a regular adventure - my soon-to-be sister-in-law has a great recipe for chicken filo parcels that I'd love to learn.