Dumpling Bowl

Not long after the Bubblicity reopened as the Dumpling Bowl, Richard went with some friends and said that the place was great. "They make their dumplings in house," he added. Sounds good.

When MO and I met up for a snack, we weaved through groups of high schoolers and sat by the entrance. I liked that their menu selection is so small. In my mind, the smaller the menu is, the more likely there's better quality control. Check out their full food menu here.

Toronto Weekend July 2013: Part 1

We did a road trip to Toronto for our cousin's wedding last weekend. I'll break it up into two parts. Here's 1 of 2.

I tend to get car sick on road trips because three main reasons: empty stomach, being too warm, riding with a heavy-footed driver. Sometimes it's a combination of the three. The latter didn't apply during the trip. To prevent the first two, I made sure to have a snack before we hit the road and have a bottle of water to keep me cool during the trip.

Chinese New Year 2013

The event this year was made more special because we had family from Australia visiting. And since they were here, we ordered a whole roast pig from Double Happiness! Jealous?

Snacking on Chicken Dumplings

These aren't chicken and dumplings. They're chicken dumplings.

With the help of the Andrew and two KGs, we made chicken dumplings (I've also called them pot stickers in the past) in under an hour. I whipped up the dumpling skin by mixing all purpose flour, sugar, a bit of salt, boiled water, and some room temperature water. The dough was kneaded and then allowed to rest, while the filling was mixed together; ground chicken, a small package of firm tofu, oyster sauce, sesame oil, grated ginger, sugar, black pepper, and green onions.


As KG rolled out the dumpling skins, the other KG, Andrew, and I wrapped them with the prepared filling.


Using the steam-fry-steam method with a bit of vegetable oil, most of the dumplings were cooked to perfection. I got impatient and tried to take the dumplings out after all the water evaporated, but the bottoms stuck. Pot stickers indeed. Instead of scraping all of them off, I gave the dumplings some time with the hot pan until they let go without much difficulty.



The thin dumplings reminded me of the dumplings I ate in Taiwan while at the hospital. We were able to roll out the dumpling skins really thin. It was kissed with sweetness, too! The filling was salty enough to eat without a dip of soy sauce and red vinegar, but we had it on the table... so... why not?

There was a lot of leftover filling. We didn't even use half of it. The bowl of dumpling filling was put into the fridge. Andrew helped me make another batch of dumpling skin the following afternoon. We wrapped the dumplings, cooked them, and munched on them for a late lunch.

I was extremely happy with the dumpling skins and cooking method. "You've mastered it!" Richard said.


A strong brew of jasmine tea finished our small meal.

Sticky Rice Rolls (aka Zang or Zongzi)

Most people are familiar with this dish being called lo mai gai, though it’s more like zongzi. In Mandarin it’s known as nuo mi ji. This dish has multiple names from different countries; the Vietnamese take of this is called banh tet, while the Cambodians call it nom asom. In our family, we just call it zang. It is made with glutinous rice and is stuffed with things ranging from savoury salted pork fat, to chicken, to sweet red bean paste. Just like the variety of fillings, the whole thing can be wrapped in leaves like banana leaves, lotus leaves, and bamboo leaves.

I’ll be referring to the dish as zang for the rest of the article. Our family has been using mung beans, seasoned pork, and pork fat as the filling. The way we wrap ours is the southern Chinese way, as opposed to the pyramid-like northern Chinese version. My Grandma makes zang the best in our extended family, as Lucy and our relatives in Australia can attest to.

Dumplings, Spring Rolls, Sweets, Tea

Some friends from high school came over for a small dinner of dumplings and spring rolls a few days ago. The pork and napa cabbage-filled dumplings were, of course, made from scratch. The dumpling skin and filling were made prior to their arrival. Once we were in the kitchen, I taught them how to wrap the dumplings. We had a good time wrapping the dumplings. Despite the teasing, they did really well. Although they didn't look that great, all the misshapen dumplings were cooked up using the fry-steam-fry method. Some of the longer dumplings ended up looking like cooked intestines after I had to coil them in the pan. Hahaa!

As for the spring rolls, I just took out some frozen spring rolls (that were homemade) and deep-fried them in vegetable oil. We had four different dipping dishes of sauces. There were two plum sauces, one hoisin sauce, and one red vinegar-soy sauce mix. I also made a pot of chicken, daikon and napa cabbage soup to wash everything down.

I should’ve made tea while we were eating. Fail. We had a brief tea break after we finished eating instead. OP brought over some Melissa herbs (aka lemon balm) from her garden. We made some Melissa herb tea and a pot of jasmine tea to have a little variety. The Melissa herb was quite a refreshing lemony, and almost sweet, tea. OP mentioned that iced Melissa herb tea is more enjoyable, especially in the summer.

To finish off the meal evening, we enjoyed a variety of sweets that JS bought from the Nutty Greek Bake Shop. OP also brought over some brownies chocolate cupcakes that she made. Out of all of the sweets JS brought, my favourites were the almond cookie and the icing sugar-topped shortbread cookie. I can't forget about the moist and tender chocolate cupcakes that OP made.

First Banh Xeo Meal of the Summer

Lettuce was on sale last week so we made savoury fried pancakes called banh xeo. It’s a Vietnamese dish, but people also eat it in Cambodia too. We’ve written about the dish before. Making banh xeo is very time-consuming because each one has to be carefully made. After lunch, Mom started making them ahead of time so that we could all eat at the same time.

Pan-Fried Tilapia Fillets with Salad, Mushrooms, and Pasta

Our refrigerator is filled with condiments, dressings, and the like. The cupboards are stocked with stuff ranging from spices (star anise, cloves, galangal, etc.), to dried packages of rice noodles, to cans of coconut milk, and to a variety of dried tea leaves. Did I mention that our freezers are packed full of seafood and undistinguishable cuts of meat? It’s quite tough to scavenge for food in our kitchen.

We (Lucy, Jimmy, Richard, Andrew and I) were looking for an easy dinner on afternoon. So naturally, we came up with some lazy ideas: McD’s, pizza, pho, or Greek food. While some of us were busy in brainstorming for take-out places, Richard suggested that we take a stroll in our nearby grocery store and just cook up a dinner instead. And so we took a stroll…

We brought back some tilapia fillets, packaged pasta and pre-made sauces, and Portobello mushrooms.

The plan of attack was to pan-fry the basa fillets simply with some salt and pepper. We’d make a salad with the cherry tomatoes and baby spinach, the mushrooms would get sautéed and simmered with some bacon, and we’d make the pasta.

The fish was seasoned with sea salt and black pepper. Someone was a bit too heavy handed with the sea salt. Despite efforts of rinsing off the salt, the cooked tilapia fillets tasted like they were in the process of curing.

A package of bacon was cooked and some of it was used for the salad. All of the bacon fat was used to make the Portobello mushrooms. It was a huge hit and will definitely make more appearances in the future.

How about a little appetizer of cherry tomato, Portobello mushroom and a piece of bacon?

The pan used to make the mushrooms was deglazed with a bit of wine. Some cherry tomatoes and one of the sauces was heated up together in the pan too. The other sauce was added to the cooked tortellini.

Most of the pieces of fish were too salty to eat, but the salad and mushrooms picked up the slack. They were both the stars of the dinner.