The theme of this yearâ€TMs Oxford Food Symposium was †̃Stuffed and Wrappedâ€TM â€" so we spent the whole weekend discussing dumplings, pasties, stuffed vegetables and the like. We ate stuffed and wrapped foods, like langoustines in filo pastry, saddle of lamb encroute, summer pudding, stuffed vegetables from Gaziantep in Eastern Turkey, baklavas and German sausages, And after dinner on Saturday night, I led a small Chinese dumpling-making session in the bar, teaching people how to pleat jiaozi and baozi, gather up shao mai and make various other pastry shapes.
This was all made possible by the generosity of the lovely Sophie Liu and Chefs Zhou Jianjun and Ren Qiang of My Sichuan restaurant in Oxford, who rustled up large amounts of dumpling dough and lent me a Chinese rolling pin! (Chef Zhou used to work at Barshu.)
Here is a picture of some of our efforts!
One Response to “Dumpling fun”
It’s so great to hear that you’re involving people in one of the most fun things to make… delicious Chinese dumplings!
This week, I’ve given your Pork and Pumpkin Dumpling recipe a try (except I had zucchini on hand) and we steamed some for breakfast this morning. My family was quite impressed with the results and we all enjoyed the soft glutinous skins & the beautiful pork filling.
I want to send you a huge thank you for bringing authentic Sichuan recipes such as this to the Western world (which are hard to come by!). Keep up the amazing work 🙂