Day 1: Intermediate (Dumplings)

 Homemade Dumplings!






Chef Avril Teaching Tori
how to cook the dumplings

We started off this dumpling-filled day with introductions and getting to know Chef Avril who led us through the day. After we went over our recipes and asked questions, we then began gathering ingredients. 

We started by making our dough and in order to do this we had to do some simple metric conversion and a lot of hand work. Chef Avril helped us by making sure we had exact measurements for the ingredients so the dough wasn't too sticky or too dry. We were shown the best way to knead the dough so that we don't overwork it. After kneading the dough we left it to rest for an hour and began working on our filling. 


Sofi kneading the dough

To make our filling we had a selection of either pork

or chicken and we mixed those with our fresh vegetables.  We rehydrated mushrooms and diced chives, garlic, ginger, and Chinese cabbage.  This process was a lot of fun but did require patience since we were handling knives. Chef Avril made sure to come around and help anyone who needed it with the dicing. He taught us how to take control of the knife and make sure we know how to properly dice by keeping the knife on the board and gliding. Overall the filling took about an hour. By that time our dough was ready to be sectioned.

 

Imaar and Mateo
slicing the dough

 We made little dough balls then pressed, rolled, and cut them out into our dumpling pancakes this was definitely my favorite part. Once we were done we got a quick demonstration on how to easily fold out dumplings where we learned three different styles. The first was pleating which was my personal favorite, the second was a bowl-type shape, and the third was a normal flat fold. After we used all the filling we began to cook.


    We had the option to either steam or pan-fry the dumplings. If you choose to steam we had a proper traditional Steemer and we lade cabbage leaves down put the dumplings on and began steeming. If you chose to pan-fry we had detailed instructions and a lovely lesson from the chef along with supervision to ensure our safety since we were working with hot oil. Once they were done cooking it was time to plate and eat. 

Tori, Ellie, and Madeline dicing


    Overall there were over 100 dumplings made today and many different dipping sauce trials and it all paid off. The final product was amazing. I will definitely be using all the skills tips and tricks I learned in this class to make my own dumplings at home.






Sofi holding her dumpling 



Dumplings


Imaar holding a dumpling 



Sauce Max and Nuria made



Max holding the steamer




Pan-fried dumplings





Sofi and Ariela making dumplings 


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