Oh my word. You were not prepared to see the photo above. Don’t those dumplings look horrific? Okay, I’ll stop. But seriously, the whole dumpling-making process was coming along nicely until I had trouble removing them from the pan. I apologize for not having a photo of them looking nice, but mistakes happen, right? And like I said in a past article, I’m a cooking novice. I probably used the wrong type of pan for it, but don’t beat me up.
Anyways, name a better way to use cabbage and pork that had been waiting in the refrigerator to be used. I’ll wait. But while I wait, let me tell you about my process.
Of course, the first thing I did was gather the ingredients. It’s always a very good practice to get all of your ingredients first. I know you’re thinking, “Duh!” But make no mistake, not everybody does it. And then the cabbage-cutting stage. It wasn’t that bad but then it was a little hard to slice it in half. I think they came out in fine little pieces. I’m not that bad at cabbage cutting, am I? After the cabbage cutting, I poured it into the bowl of ground pork, followed by green onions, salt, white pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce.
Because there were no plastic gloves to go around, I stirred everything up with a metal spoon. That mixture looked like it would be appetizing, didn’t it? Obviously I couldn’t eat it raw, but other countries have raw meat dishes. Hello, Korea has a raw beef dish called Yukhoe! Look it up!
Alright, let me not conduct a cultural lesson, but on my platform, it’s never a bad time to learn about other cultures. Back to the dumplings, the next stage was stuffing the meat into each wrapper. Unlike other versions you see on the internet with round wrappers, I used square rappers, because that was what I had to make do with. They still came out fine from my view, and all was well until the end of the pan stage.
Speaking of the pan stage, I felt so much excitement putting the dumplings into the pan! Finally, an opportunity to eat some savory, succulent, and fresh homemade dumplings! I was ready for those 15 minutes to pass, but then it took a few odd minutes to get all of them out of the pan. At that stage, I couldn’t believe it. My goal was to have food ready before my mother arrived back home, and there I was trying to not destroy the dumplings with a spatula. *Sigh* How bad.
That’s why I called them Messy Dumplings, because they did not come out as neat as I had hoped. But they were still tasty! They were savory, satisfying, and I really wanted to have them again within the next few days! Too bad that I had to return to my college dorm room and miss out on that and more home cooking. By the way, don’t ask me what I put on top of the dumplings. I wanted to make a dumpling sauce, but it ended up being completely random due to not having every single ingredient for the dumpling sauce. On top of that, I wanted a balance of flavor and not anything that my taste buds would interpret as too unbalanced or too much of anything for that matter.
No lie, I seriously miss cooking at home. I used to dislike when my mother asked me to cook with her, but it is such a relaxing activity and a way to pass the time. Also, I feel proud of writing about my experiences and creating Instagram Reels to go along with it. I write an article + create a Reel to supplement each other and show the whole process. Maybe I’ll make some bloopers at some point. But one day, I am going to have my own cooking series that will be viewed by millions of people. One day…
Link to Original Reel: https://www.instagram.com/p/CJe3bBABaSQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Link to My Reel: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLLRHYSJtM0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Your (messy) dumplings are incredible!!! I’ve recently began my cooking journey and I hope I reach my lifelong goal of becoming head chef at kioscos 🤗. Happy baking 🤌🏼
Thank you for reading my blog, Billy! I appreciate it! Be sure to look at the original recipe for the credits and if you would like to attempt to re make them yourself!