Dumpling anyone?

"Im going China town, going China town" *sung in the thune of The Jams Going Underground*.

Not having a cooker for over four weeks- a rant for another time-. The Beaumont household has been surviving on a diet of frozen meals and takeaways.

Aah, the latter was so novel at first. Merrily scanning menus ordering up a feast knowing you don't have to get your hands dirty.

I am a creature of habit, not great but it does have its pro's. So when it comes to takeaways (I'm cool with restaurants) I usually order the same thing, In my opinion there is nothing worse than getting a dish that in theory sounded so lush but in reality is barely paletable. Leaving you to spend the rest of the evening staring longingly at your fellow friends food, totally pissed off because:

a)you cannot be bothered to wait for another 50 mins for another delivery

b)you now have to cook something, which totally defeats the purpose of a takeaway evening.

Four weeks down the line lets just say the suggestion of a takeaway was often followed by the words: bo***cks, no way and f***ing hell, in no particular order.

You should have seen the excitement, when our brand new cooker came, I swear even the mythed second coming of Christ wouldn't have gotten such a reception. oohing and ahhing, everyone was talking at once about what they were first going to cook, nevermind the fact that a couple of us actually hated cooking - no doubt forgetten in a severe case of takeaway induced amnesia.

However like Harry Potters scar something remained with me; a new found appreciation of Chinese cooking. I suspect it might be because I didn't have sufficient time to fully get sick of it yet.

A huge fan of Japanese cooking, sushi being my favouite food, I never gave much thought to Chinese, to me it seemed laden with coloured preservatives, and full of god knows how many e-numbers. I found having restaurants everywhere lost its novel appeal. But the humble dumpling, my goodness I didn't predict how yummy they'd; completely addictived. I vowed to make it my first dish to cook.

Braving the horrendous British weather I headed to Soho in search of dumpling skins. Prize firmly in carrier bag I rushed home excited to make my first batch. to cut a long story short the first bite was heaven I couldn't believe I had done it, lil' old me made my very own dumpling and it tasted good, so good I chose to devote a whole blog to it. But I'm not selfish people I have chosen to share my recipe with you, so go, now what are you waiting for go make dumplings.

INGREDIENTS

• dumpling skins
• pork mince (200g)
• fresh ginger (crushed)
• crushed garlic (the lazy one is fine too)
• soy sauce
• toated sesame oil
• spring onions
• fine sea salt
• white pepper

HOW TO:

• Mix all the ingrediants together, decide how much of every ingrediant you wish to put in, its completely up to you.
• place a skin in the palm of your hand
• dip a finger into water and run it around the edges, so they can stick together, when filled.
• place some filling in the centre and close the edgesof the pastry together
• place the dumplings into boiling hot water. they are ready when they float to the surface.
• serve with soy sauce

voila!