I am not really a fan of those sui jiao or gyozas or whatever names they give to those meat dumplings but my girl loves them so we do order those whenever we see any place selling them outside. Her favourites in town would be the ones here or here…and I quite like what I had here though it did not go down to well with everybody that day and they all felt it was more like our Sibu Foochow-style sio bee.
When she was in New Zealand, my girl would buy those frozen ones and fry them to enjoy but I could not imagine myself doing that. You would need a bit of oil to start off, right? Then you need to add a bit of water. Good grief!!! I was pretty sure there would be a whole lot of splutter and I would end up with a horrible mess all over my cooker top. However, it so happened that I spotted this…
…at a bakery in town and I quickly grabbed a pack for my girl to try.
Now that stayed in the freezer for a week…and nothing happened and the following weekend, I decided to take things into my own hands and have a go with it. There were quite a few inside…
…but they were all very small, maybe half of the usual size.
These sachets…
…came with it, one with black vinegar and another with chili sauce. I think the third one was shallot oil, lard that had been used to fry some shallots for the added fragrance – what one would usually use to toss kampua noodles. I decided to use that to grease the pan and once it was hot enough, I put in the dumplings to fry till the bottom was nice and golden. Then, I poured in a bit of water…
…and covered that with a saucepan lid that could fit.
After sometime, I fished them out…
…and yes, they were very nicely done and no, to my delight, there wasn’t much splutter…and we did enjoy them with the sauces…
…provided.
Hmmmm…it certainly was not so hard, after all and I sure would not mind doing it again…
Looking at the instructions at the back, I saw that I could cook it this way or steam it or cook and serve it as a soup dish but seeing that my girl prefers it this way, then it has to be done thus and no other will do.
My friend, Annie‘s brother was making some nice ones once – I don’t know if he is still doing it. Perhaps I can get some of his…and now that I know how to go about pan-frying them, I sure would want to give his a try and cook them like this.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 