It's been a long time since I've written about food and that's so wrong, so here goes...
I've completely fallen in love with a delicious northern Chinese dish called jiaozi or Chinese dumplings. It's a wonderful blend of ground meat and vegetables encased in a dough wrapper. It can be boiled, steamed or pan-fried and eaten with a vinegar-chilli oil sauce. This picture was taken at Baoyuan Dumpling Restaurant in Beijing. It had an unusual filling of meat, egg omelette & tomatoes...simply divine...yum!
Jiaozi is a staple food in the north, unlike in Southern China where rice is preferred. I must have some northern blood in my system because I have always preferred dumplings over rice. Even as a child, I would do anything to avoid having rice at meals. One enduring memory of childhood is my dad feeding me dinner with a spoon in one hand and a cane in the other!
Thankfully, those painful mealtime memories can be banished since I can now indulge in as many jiaozi as I want. Especially here in China, where it's cheap and plentiful. I always have a couple of packets stashed away in the freezer, and an ample supply of vinegar and chilli oil. Dinner anyone?
For an interesting article that explains how deeply jiaozi is identified with the Chinese psyche, follow this link
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