Week 2: Chinese

I was excited when I found out that this week's assignment was Chinese food. Each time I make a "Chinese" dish from a cookbook or online recipe, I often question how authentic the food I am making is compared to what is actually eaten in China. I had two goals with this week. First was to make homemade dumplings; second was to learn to make something that was close to authentic Chinese.

I had some difficulties in finding good food blogs for Chinese food. I ended up finding eggwansfoododyssey and redcook, from which I took my receipes this week. I decided to make Moo Goo Gai Pan and potsticker dumplings. 

With all my ambition lined up, I was faced with reality. Making dumplings, potstickers in this case, was going to be a time consuming process and I wouldn't be able to fit it in on a week night. (I have a hungry wife, so having dinner at nine at night is really not an option.) Unfortunately the chips fell in such a way that we ended up with dinner plans with friends and family each and every night this weekend, including Monday night, which is a holiday in the States.

I ended up making the Moo Goo Gai Pan for dinner Friday night. Afterwards, my lovely wife and I made the potsticker dumplings, but we didn't cook them. They are now sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be fried and steamed. I will post the final pics when they are cooked.

So here is the moo goo gai pan.

Cutting the chicken

 Moo Goo Gai Pan uses a wet stir fry method, which requires the chicken to be coated in corn starch and egg and then fried in a large amount of oil.  I had no idea how much of a difference this would make. The chicken was extremely tender, juicy, and tasty.

The rest of the ingredients

Everyone in the pan

Yum!

I am very jealous of all of the rest of you. You have pretty colored dishes. If I had nice black square plates, you might be able to see the rice better. My kitchen was not set up to be a photo studio; that is for sure!

I ordered moo goo gai pan from a Chinese restaurant only once in my life. It came with chewy chicken and a menagerie of vegetables ( none of them mushrooms) in a heavy white sauce, that could only have been described as "Chinese" alfredo. It was so bad I never ordered it again. I learned from the redcook recipe that my experience was not uncommon, and that this is NOT moo goo gai pan. Once I read this post, I looked forward to making something that was actually Chinese. 

While I do not have a finished product to show you, here are the pics from making the potstickers. (also the camera ran out of batteries before we were done, hence no finished product.)

The pork just before grinding. I didn't like this picture on the camera, but once I saw the reflections in the metal bowls, I had to put it in. Take note, if you are getting married, ask for the Kitchen Aid appliances. You will be surprised what you take home!

There is no picture of me making the dough, because my wife was too busy laughing at my inability to deal with dough. Unless the directions are very exact, I always end up wanting to throw it across the room.  In this case, I wouldn't have been able to as it was literally glue on my hands.

Making the dumplings

Some turned out good, some not so good.

I will post the final results when we get to making them, maybe for lunch tomorrow.