late night cooking

Late night cooking = bad idea. Especially when it's something I haven't made before. I had been meaning to make some Chinese pan-fried chive dumplings for a while now. Apparently for too long as the chives I bought were partially rotting. I had to go through each stalk, not just to wash them, but to pick off any slimy rotted portions. This took a LOT longer than expected. I started at 10:30pm but did not finish until 2am.

This was the recipe I followed: Stuffed Pancakes with Garlic Chives

The dough calls for boiling water. Why? I don't know. I didn't have any pork on hand so mine only had vermicelli, egg, and chives as filling. The second most time consuming part was wrapping the damn things. When a recipe calls for 1 lb of flour for a dough that then needs to be divided into small chunks to wrap things with, that should be a clue to either cut the recipe in half or not start it at 10:30pm.

Silly me, I made the entire portion of dough and separated it into 16 balls. I continuously wrapped until 2am, by which time my back and legs hurt. I couldn't even try one because Lawrence didn't want me to fry them up that late at night. Instead I got up extra early this morning to fry some up. I made them last night so that I could bring them for lunch so I better have some for lunch.

I was a little bit skeptical because the chives & vermicelli were not cooked before wrapping but they steamed up nicely inside the dumplings while they were being pan fried. It actually turned out pretty good, but I think I'll try cooking the next batch at a medium-high heat instead of full on high. I think the outsides got too dark before the dough could fully cook. However, the one I ate seemed cooked through so I don't know if it's even an issue.

Three pan-fried chive dumplings + 3 slices pan-fried turnip cake with sweet chili sauce = nom nom lunch!