Making Chinese Dumpling | The Magic Cape - Gnomes and Chipmunks

Hello everyone, how are you guys all doing today? Good? Yeah? All right, so my name is Tai and today I'll be your teacher. So what are your favorite foods? Fries. Oh, fries. Fries are really good. All right, what about your favorite Chinese food? Dumplings. Dumplings? You like dumplings? All right, you like dumplings too? Dumplings. Dumplings? You can, you know how to make them? All right, today we're going to be learning about how to make dumplings. All right, you like that? Yeah? Before we start to learn how to make dumplings, let's learn a little bit about the history of dumplings, all right? So the dumplings were said to have been invented in the Eastern Han dynasty. Do you know when that is? No? It's almost 2,000 years ago. That's a very long time, right? All right, so it's said to have been invented by a Chinese doctor called Zhang Zhongjing. So once he was going back to his hometown village, right, to visit his family. Then when he went there, it was like winter, right? It was really, really cold. So you saw a lot of people, they were like freezing on the streets. Their ears were like frostbitten. You know what a frostbite is? It's when a certain part of your body gets really cold and you can't move it anymore. So he saw that people were like really sick, right? And he was a doctor. So he came up with a plan to help everyone. He decided to put some medicine and he combined it with some meat filling and a lot of some other herbs and he wrapped them in this like dough skin in the shape of an ear. And so he made it into a soup and then he fed people. And after a couple days, everyone was all healed because the meat filling had some medicine in it and the soup warmed their bodies as well. In memory of the doctor, the people started eating dumplings every winter. So in the past, dumplings, you can't buy them at the supermarket. They were considered luxury food. So only rich people could eat dumplings. And normally for other people, maybe like the poorer people, they can't eat it every day. So they can only eat special occasions like special festivals and special events. Do you know an event where we would eat a lot of dumplings? Chinese New Year? Exactly. So for Chinese New Year, on Chinese New Year's Eve, people would come together and they would make dumplings. And dumplings is also called jiaozi. And it's very similar to the Chinese phrase of stepping into a new era or stepping into a new year. So that is why people will eat dumplings on New Year's Eve. And then some families, they will even put a coin into one of the dumplings, and then whoever got the coin, they would be the lucky one for that year. Yeah. Well, normally when you eat the dumplings, you would chew it, right? So maybe as you're chewing it, you just bite down on something hard and it's like, oh, what's this? And then they would be like, oh, I got the coin. I got the coin. I'll be the lucky one this year, right? So for today, we won't be putting any coins in because... Well, maybe when it's Chinese New Year, you can put in a coin. Oh, no, the coin is all clean. You know, you've got to wash it thoroughly. And then you just put it in one of the random dumplings. Dumplings are typically, they have some meat filling in it. And it also depends on where you're from, because some people, they might live on the coast by the sea. So then they might put fish in it. Exactly. They might put fish in it. And then some families, they live maybe further north and they don't have a lot of other ingredients except for like lamb. So they put lamb meat inside of it. And then some families, they don't like, they don't like to eat a lot of meat. So then they put like eggs and vegetables in it. So today, we'll be making a pork and cabbage dumplings. And there are many other ways to cook a dumpling as well. They can be fried. They can be pan fried. They can be made into soup. They can be boiled. A lot of many different ways. Typically, dumplings are also eaten with a type of sauce. It can be black vinegar sauce, or they can be a spicy version of the black vinegar sauce. Or you can just eat them with chili oil as well. Today, we'll be making these dumplings. Are you guys excited about making dumplings? Yeah. Yeah? All right, let's get started then. So as you can see here, we have a lot of ingredients. We have some ground meat. We have some scallions. We have ginger. And we have some cabbage over there. Now, let's get started. All right. So first, we gotta season the meat first. We're gonna put the meat in here first. Yes, all of it. So here, we have the ground meat, right? Here, we have some ginger. Put that in. First, we're going to add some water. Just a little bit at a time. Just a little bit. Then, we're going to stir it in one direction, okay? So then, the meat can absorb all the water. So it'll be juicier. And now, we're going to add a little bit of salt. All right. So other than salt and water, we gotta add some other seasonings too. So here, we have some peppercorn. Then, let's add some pepper or white pepper. Yeah. So we're gonna add that to give it some color. This one is Lao Chou dark soy sauce. So it adds color and a bit of flavor to it. This one is just normal soy sauce. So that only has that So we're gonna add two spoons. Yeah. All right. So now, we're gonna add a little bit of dark soy sauce. Now, this will really change its color. The spoon got stained. Okay. So now, we're going to add scallions or green onion. Yeah, all of it. So when you add new ingredients, gotta mix it slow at first and then you can pick up the speed. Now that the meat filling is seasoned, we're going to move on to the white cabbage. So we have vegetables and the meat. You don't want to just eat like a whole meatball, right? With nothing else in it. It's a little bit flavorless. So we're going to dice up these cabbage and then we're going to process it in the food processor to make it smaller bits. When using a knife, you always have to be careful, all right? When you're cutting it, make sure that your hands, your fingers are curled up so you won't cut your fingers, okay? Always curl it up. And when you're holding the knife, try to hold it with two fingers so it's more stable when you hold, when you cut down, okay? So first, we're just going to cut it into smaller bits. So then an adult. Yes, it's best if you have an adult with you. Now, we're going to cut it into smaller smaller bits so then we can put it in the food processor. Let's move these aside. Okay. Now, we're going to put it on the machine, okay? So we're just going to turn it on so it doesn't fly out. All right. So now that we have all the ingredients cut up, we're going to incorporate the cabbage into the meat filling. But before we do that, we've got to get the water out of the cabbage first. By adding some salt, salt draws the water out of the cabbage and then we're going to squeeze out the water and then we're going to put it in here. No, because when you put the salt in, the salt falls with the water when you squeeze it out so it won't be that salty. So this is going to be messy. So if you're at home and you got long sleeves like me, you gotta roll it up and then we're going to get ready. We're going to add some salt and we're going to mix it. Okay, we're going to mix it. Yeah, because this is pink Himalayan salt. No, you can use any other salt. Do I have to add the whole box? No, you don't. I guess we do. For cabbage, it's okay. You can stir in any direction just as long as you don't make it like fly everywhere. No, that would not be good. You can. You can actually eat raw cabbage. But today we're making dumplings so we gotta mix it in. So we gotta wait a couple minutes for the cabbage to release all the water. And if you saw the cabbage right before I mixed in the salt, it was like up to here, right? Then the moment I added the salt, it like started shrinking because it's slowly releasing all the water. Oh no, we don't need soy sauce for this. Oh, that's all right. All right, so you see? Then after I added the salt, it shrunk. So now we're going to squeeze out the water. Gotta hold it and then we gotta squeeze. You see how much water came out? You need to squeeze hard. Yeah, you gotta squeeze it hard and then you can put in the cabbage. Grab another handful and squeeze. There's a little bit of cabbage in there. That's all right. Are we using that? No. We're going to incorporate the cabbage into the meat. And now we're going to add a little bit of oil. This is peanut oil. You can use any kind of flavorless oil. Oh, smells so good. So now we're going to split this in half so you guys can get a bowl of the filling and you guys can get a bowl of the filling. Well, I mixed it pretty evenly so it should be all right. Well, that's all right. So this is the filling for you guys. Don't eat it. Don't touch it. Eating raw meat is not good for you. It'll give you a stomach ache. We're allergic to raw meat. Yeah, me too. I'm allergic to raw meat. No, raw meat just has some kind of germs to it. So it's not good for your stomach. Yeah, and then it'll be safe to eat. We have the wrappers and we have the filling ready. So now we're going to learn how to wrap it. So first, we're going to take a skin, one piece of skin. These are very thin. And then we're going to grab some water and put it around the edges of the skin. Yeah, the water acts as kind of like a glue. Then we're going to take a little bit of filling. Okay, not too much. Not too much filling or else it'll burst out when it's cooking. So now there are two ways to wrap a dumpling. Actually, there are many ways depending on where you live. First, we're going to close it in the middle like this. Then we're going to pinch it so it sticks. Yeah, then we're going to put it like this. Then we're going to squeeze it. Or you can just pinch the edges of the side like this. That works as well. That's all right. It's just a little bit. So this is one way. You just pinch the edges. So that is a different way to fold it. So here is another way. Well, this one has a bit too much filling. So you can take a little bit off and close it in the middle, right? Close in the middle. Then on the edge over here, you clamp it together. This one got a little bit too much, but that's okay. And you just push one side, one flap down, and you push the other flap down. And then there's like a little crease there. Then for the other side, close this part first and this and this. And there'll be like little flowers on it. There's also another way to make it. How about you guys each grab one and then let's try it. Let's try to make it. So now that the dumplings are cooked, we can dig in. But before we do, you got to be careful because these are right out of the pot. So they're steaming hot. So be careful. Don't burn yourself. All right. All right. Dig in.