A few months ago, I tried my hand at making home-made dumplings. It came out all right, and it was definitely passable for a first attempt, but we always said that we should have another go at it. After all, if we liked it all right when we made it with no first-hand experience, it should come out even better after having at least one rep under our belt, right?
We found out this weekend.
First of all, the Mild Wife helped with the dough preparation this time around. I knew to be wary of making the dough too sticky this time around, but because she has more experience with baking, she was able to guide us through the pitfalls. What really surprised me was just how little water you can/should add at a time. We're talking about a tablespoon at a time when you're trying to make a ball of dough. I mean, I knew not to overwater it from previous experience, but it still surprised me to add in that little water at a time.
Still, there was a method to this (including the trusty sanduk), and the dough came out really well. It was pliable, but more importantly, it was far less sticky than the one that I had made the first time around. All in all, it was a clear improvement to the first one.
Now, we had shrimp on hand this time around, and we had decided that we were going to make wontons instead of dumpling, but a lot of the same basic principles still applied. In fact, we used the same starter recipe as a basis for our filling. It obviously wasn't identical to what they suggested, but I had enough of an idea of how I wanted it to taste that I could freestyle the filling.
So, after carefully rolling out the dough into wrappers, filling them, and folding them, we were able to finally cook them in our broth to get that nice wonton flavor. I say "finally" only because there were a few steps, but it was a surprisingly quick process. I'm guessing it took about an hour of prep time including making the dough and chopping the ingredients, so it really didn't seem that bad.
The finished product came out pretty well (if I do say so myself), though we have ideas about how to wrap the wontons for next time. The best part, though, was that we had extra filling left over, so we were able to make shrimp balls and have those for a different meal. All in all, it seemed like a marked improvement over the first attempt, and a meal that we're definitely going to have to make again.
My favorite part, though, was when everything was done, we sat down and got to enjoy the fruits of our labors. It may not have been funny, but it certainly brought a level of appreciation and amusement to the meal. I mean, looking at the bowl the second time, I could definitely tell that this was not the same meal that I had made the first time. I'd like to think that a wry chuckle escaped from me at some point or another, though that might very well be hindsight.
In either case, we're definitely going to make that again.
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