Thai Goodness

We decided to put the wontons we had leftover from this fun dish to good use. I love Thai food and have introduced Leslie to it slowly over the last few years. She's found a few dishes she likes, and one of them is the oh so delicious Thai-style dumpling. We like ordering these when we go to one of the Thai restaurants in the area (there's a surprisingly high concentration on our side of town... at least four different Thai restaurants within a 15 minute drive from us) and decided to try making some ourselves. This is our 17th published recipe of the year and is found here on Epicurious.

The Recipe

Thai Dumplings

1 Pound Ground Pork

1/4 Cup Scallion

1/2 Cup Red Bell Pepper

2/3 Cup Cabbage

1 Clove Garlic

2 Teaspoons Fresh Gingerroot

1/4 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

1-1/2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

2 Tablespoons Cilantro

1 Egg

Salt and Pepper

Wonton Wrappers

Finely mince the scallions, peppers, cabbage, garlic, ginger, and cilantro. Mix well in a bowl with the pork, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and put in the fridge overnight or at least one hour. Place about a tablespoon of the mixture into a wrapper, wet the edges of the wrapper and form it around the mixture. The recipe should make 50 to 60 dumplings, depending on how much filling you put in each one. To cook, heat a tablespoon of oil over med-high heat in a saucepan. Place the dumplings in and fry on the bottom for about a minute or until the bottom is golden-brown. Add 1/2 cup water, put the lid on the pan, and steam for 8 to 10 minutes or until the pork is cooked through. Repeat this process with each batch of dumplings until you're finished.

End Results and Final Thoughts

Oh my goodness these are good. They taste just like the ones we get at restaurants and were actually pretty easy to make. Since we just had 20ish leftover wontons we halved the recipe and were able to cook them all in one batch. Total time for cook and prep wasn't too bad and would be even better if we made a full batch as our prep time to finished product ratio would be higher. Also, the ingredients list required us to buy a few things, but it's mostly normal produce items and didn't cause any problems. And these were so good that we'll be sure to keep this recipe around and make these again.

A few things, though. First off, we made the sauce the recipe linked above suggests and didn't like it. We probably need to search for a better dipping sauce recipe, but a little soy sauce worked for us that night. Also, the wrappers didn't want to form around the mixture that well for me. I think what I might do next time is wrap them, put them in a mini muffin pan to keep the sides together, and freeze them. To cook them frozen simply follow the instructions in the link. It would make for a better looking finished product and I could be ok with keeping a bunch frozen and on hand for whenever we're craving some dumpling goodness. Although that might be dangerous... like a drug addict and his secret stash...

And that's all for now. Thanks for reading and have a great Tuesday!