At this moment, I am too full to sleep. LOL Telling your friends how much you miss them gets a bit cheesy sometimes, thus we eat together-- taking it slowly (6~10pm lol) and chat our way on... allowing ourselves to forget about all the shitty things that we have to face in life for a while. Let both our stomach and heart be filled with happiness. :) | 現在是在一個飽到睡不著的狀態 XD 不停地跟朋友說訴說想念實在矯情,所以我們吃飯。吃很久的飯、順便聊很久的天,暫時把生活中種種的不愉快和煩惱拋下。心跟胃袋一起被快樂塞滿 :) |
As Chinese New Year approaches... I started to get some food nostalgia. High expectation no longer exists after staying in the western countries for such a long time now. The nostalgia is still there, but I know I won't be able to reproduce the table full of delicious dishes, mountains of snacks, the sound of Mah-jong nor the crackers and fireworks... There are still things that I can't stop missing though, for example, dumplings. ...To the extent that I actually dreamed about it, and mumbled "my dumplings dumplings" when I woke up... the desire was just that strong XD Yet as shown in the procedure flow chart above... should I really put in the time and energy just for some dumplings? Oh hell yeah. Especially when you got a friend that is as crazy as you who supports you with your idea! (THANK YOU YUTING! <3) And my dear mom. Thank you! *heart* Due to the dumpling consulting I contacted my mom very frequently these few days, making sure of all the ingredients and procedures are correct. It just happened that when I called my mom she was with a group of her friends... they really had a good laugh at my silly beginner's questions about dumplings...They provided so many good suggestions still. Good that everyone is happy XD --------- Below is a wordy form of dumpling diary... | 快要過年了就會很想念食物。 其實在國外待了這麼長時間,對過年已經沒有太大的要求了。想念還是會想念,但是理智上知道自己在異鄉是絕對複製不出一桌的菜,吃不完的零嘴,麻將聲骰子遊戲或是煙火鞭炮甚麼的... 有些東西還是會無法克制的覺得需要去吃的,比如說餃子。(當然,我還很想念紅豆年糕和發糕... 可是這個食材找起來太有難度加上烹製上感覺太過困難...忍痛放棄!) 嚴重的程度甚至是作夢夢到,夢醒時分還不住呢喃「我的餃子餃子」,饞得受不了 XD 但是就像上面的步驟表... 我真的應該為了區區餃子花這麼多時間精力嗎? 喔當然。 尤其是當你有跟你一樣瘋狂的朋友支持你的想法的時候!(謝謝你啊雨婷! <3) 還有親愛的媽。謝謝(愛心) 為了餃子很勤快的聯繫了媽媽,步驟食材都確認過了才敢上手。剛好打過去的時候媽媽和一群阿姨正在聊天,聽到我要包餃子可是卻一點概念也沒有... 我問的一些蠢問題給他們帶來了不少歡樂...他們還是很熱心地給了我不少意見 ...大家都開心這樣很好 XD -------- 以下為流水帳式餃子日記。 |
Preparing the ingredients actually pressured me a lot. At a place with only a very tiny Chinese super market, sometimes you won't find the ingredient you want... I couldn't find Chinese ginger this time. Same as pork mince. I saw some pork mince at the Tesco in city centre, but I wasn't sure whether the Chinese super market will have dumpling skins yet. Thus I didn't get it at that point. I thought if they have it in the city centre Tesco, I should be able to find it at the one that's closer to our school right? ... Nope, they only have beef mince here. Celery was needed to overcome the beefy smell. I found most of the stuffs nevertheless :D As for taking care of the ingredients-- I went to my friends house to flavour the meat the day before during my lecture break. Because it's beef, which has a stronger smell that has to be covered... so other than the usual soy sauce, salt, and green onions, we added some rice wine! XD Put it through the night and pray that it will taste alright. | 備料其實給我的壓力非常大。中國超市不夠強大的地方很常有食材買不太到的窘境,像是薑我就沒找到。 豬絞肉也是,我在市中心的Tesco有看到,但當下不確定中超有沒有餃子皮所以不敢買,但想說附近的Tesco應該也會有吧。 ...回到這邊的Tesco 發現只有牛絞肉的時候我真的 囧了 因為是牛絞肉,只好多買一點芹菜去腥。 但我還是找齊了大部分的東西 :D 處理的部分,前一天下午趕在課前我就去了朋友家把肉給醃了。因為是腥味比較重的牛肉,所以除了拿來調味的叫醬油鹽巴蔥之外我們加了一點黃酒...更正,朋友上好的黃酒! XD 放一天晚上然後祈禱它的味道不會太差。 |
Then D-Day! Went straight to my friend's house after breakfast to chop up the veggies and get the waters out... took longer than I thought. | 到了決戰那一天了! 早飯後就去朋友家切菜讓菜長水,花了比我想像要長的時間。 |
At night, we mixed them together and made them into the dumpling forms! All of us have our own style of doing it hahaha As you can see in the first picture, we ate more than just dumplings! This is what happened when you invited a friend who's good at cooking... extra dishes! *tears* Another friend also brought a pizza over... <3 | 到了晚上, 我們把料和起來然後正式包成餃子的樣子! :) 我們每個人都有不一樣的餃子風格哈哈哈 如首圖所見,我們不只吃了餃子!當你邀請到了廚藝很好的朋友就有這個好處... 加菜啦! (感動得痛哭流涕) 還有另一個朋友帶來了披薩...<3 |
What should we do with the extra beef mince? "What about meatballs? Should be similar right?" ... then we actually added some flour and rolled the beef mince into meatballs XD The four of us really had a great time... we were waiting for more dumplings to be cooked anyways. Tbh the meatballs tasted quite nice LOL. | 沒包完的肉餡怎麼辦呢? "做成肉丸吧? 差不多吧?" ... 然後我們就真的加點麵粉把它揉成肉丸子了 XD 四個人玩的不亦樂乎,反正順便在等餃子煮熟 而且下鍋煮了之後發現挺好吃的 (掩面) |
That's all? Oh no no no. Sema then brought a cake over with her...just keep eating! | 這樣就結束了嗎? 喔不不不 Sema 之後帶了另一個蛋糕到來...繼續吃啊! |
-------- It was a lovely night full of laughter and liveliness XD Really glad that I didn't give this up because of the complicated procedure, really glad that I have a group of friends who are willing to experiment with me... all I can say now is... I feel extremely fortunate tonight. Absolutely thankful. Happy early Chinese New Year! We should do this kind of meet-up more often in the future haha! | -------- 晚上就這樣嘻嘻哈哈熱熱鬧鬧地度過了 XD 很慶幸自己沒有因為過程繁瑣而放棄,很慶幸有一群願意跟我一起做實驗的朋友,只能說,今天晚上的我覺得自己非常的幸運也非常的幸福。 真的很感恩。 提前祝大家新年快樂啊! 之後要常常這樣聚一聚才行哈哈! |