Sunshine and smiles, Hivers! I'm back again for another blog for this week. In this blog, I'm going to show you all how I made and cooked my dumplings in our laboratory in specialty cuisine. Let's get started!
Last Tuesday, we had a laboratory in our specialty cuisine, which is making dim sum. I choose to make a pork vegetable dumpling as my dish for this laboratory. The just made my ingredients for my dumplings since some dumplings that I search from the internet has delicate ingredients and some of them are not available in the Philippines.
As you can see in the picture, this is our kitchen laboratory, where we usually bake and cook for our laboratories in our major course. This room is so wide that it can accommodate plenty of students. It has equipment that we can use for our laboratories. I choose to put my things here because the table is perfect for dough making, and also, it has a fan.
This is me in fully personal protective equipment. At that time, I'm preparing my stuff and also myself since my professor will conduct an inspection of our uniforms and also how we prepare our things neatly.
After I prepare, I start to marinate the pork that I'm going to stuff into my dumplings. Like I said, I made the ingredients, and I just trust my knowledge on seasoning the meat to be flavorful. And if you want to make a dumpling, I'll just drop my ingredients in my dumpling so you can also try making it at your home.
For the dough:
- 2 1/3 cups of all-purpose flour
- Salt—1/4 tsp
- 3 cups of water
Note: Don't put all the water into the flour. Just put in 1 cup, and if you feel that you need to add more, add more half a cup slowly. If the 3 cups of water are not enough, you still add water but just slowly until it is perfect. The texture of the perfect dough is to have a smooth texture and be very fluffy. It needs more patience and strength to knead your dough. Don't stop until the dough isn't soft yet, and if the dough is still hard or rough, you need to add more water. Don't worry if the dough is sticky; it's normal. Just knead until it perfects.
For the meat to put inside of the dumpling:
- 2 1/3 g ground pork
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 spring onions
- 1 small carrot
- 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
- 3/4 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 inch ginger
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 tsp of chili powder
For the jelly:
- 1 cube of pork broth
- 1/3 of plain gelatin powder
Note: If you don't want pork, you can use chicken instead.
After marinating the pork, I started to make the dough. My professor told us that we should make it from scratch. Even the dough, it needs to be made to scratch. As you can see in the gif, I and my friends keep kneading the dough. It takes time to have a perfect dough, and thankfully, my dough is done perfectly. I was the first who made the dough; even my friends were the first ones who made the dough. After I perfected the dough, I started to make a broth.
After that, I started to cut my dough and make a circle so I could put the meat in already. The jelly broth that I made was done, and I just chilled it until it solidified. After that, I cut it into tiny pieces and added it to the marinated pork.
And if you're wondering how I cut all the vegetables and the other ingredients, I just put them into the food processor until they made it into tiny pieces.
At first, it was hard to stuff a pork inside of the dough since the juice of the meat kept going out, making the dough not stick. My professor taught me how to make a dumpling, and after a few tries, I made it perfectly.
I started to steam my dumplings, and while I'm waiting until the dumplings are cooked, I make more dumplings so I can put them in when the first batch of my dumplings is cooked.
After it cooks, my professor tastes the dumplings that I made, and she said that it was delicious, and I was happy because this was the first time I made dumplings, and they came out perfectly. I cook all the dumplings that I made, and the last batch is my presentation when my professor will grade our dumplings. As you can see in the picture, the dumplings that were put in the bamboo steamer are mine, while the other dumplings come from my friends. Their dumplings are very tasty and good. I also teach them on how to wrap the dumpling since they didn't know how.
My friend takes a picture of me with my homemade dumplings. As you can see, I was so happy because it turned out perfectly at my first time making it. The sauce that I made for my dumplings is just a chili oil sauce since it complements more.
After that, I started to clean my station and also clean my things so I could relax and go home. I just waited for the others to finish their dish so all of us could clean and go home.
As you can see in the picture, this is us going out to the school. We decided to go to Pacific Cafe so we can chill and relax since all of us are very exhausted and tired. Some of our classmates choose to go home straight since they still have errands to do.
When we got there, Fhaneza ordered coffee while we were still relaxing in the chair since our feet were hurting. Afterwards, we ordered, and I chose milky choco for the drinks since I'm not a fan of coffee. As you can see, we look tired but are still having fun while sipping our drinks. We hang out there just a minute until the sky darkens.
When the clock hit 7pm, we started to say our goodbyes and then went straight home.
And that's the end of my blog, Hivers! As a hospitality management, this is just a normal day for us to be fully loaded and exhausted since we have plenty of laboratories in our course. This program is very tiring and also so fun! The experience and the knowledge that you will learn make the journey more exciting. Without my friends and my classmates, my journey on my course will not be fun.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog! And see you in my next blog! Ciao!