Wonton dumpling and some homemade chilli flakes

It's been a very busy two weeks. Entirely academically based, I assure you, with the odd hint of going out with classmates to retain our sanity. We're curating and mounting our own exhibition, along with our theses, so we're a little busy/stressed out. Time for some food and cooking to retain my sanity!

Before the cooking, my roommate's pepper plant decided to die recently (mostly from her not watering it, and I being $4 in Chinatown), so I decided to harvest the dried pepper and chop them up to make my own chilli pepper flakes. We had concerns that they wouldn't be any good, since when she ate the peppers, they had no heat at all. I was convinced, for reasons I'm not 100% sure about, that when they were dried and chopped, they would gain some heat. Fortunately, I was right! As soon as I opened the spice grinder, I started sneezing from the powder in the air, and when she tasted it, it had gotten a bit spicier! She's from the Bahamas, so what's spicy to her is downright suicidal to most people. We have a hilarious time at One of a Kind every year tasting spicy sauces and having her reaction to almost all of them being "meh, not bad."

 I guess there really isn't a recipe for this, more so steps.
1. Have your roommate buy a $4 Chinatown pepper plant and let it die over the course of a month or two. Harvest the dried peppers from the plant, taking care to sweep up the resulting piles of dried leaves and branches that will then surround the plant.

2. Cut the green tops from the peppers, and place the peppers in a spice grinder. I think this is actually a coffee grinder, but since neither of us drink coffee, it has become a spice grinder.

Before...

After!

3. Grind away. Don't shake the grinder to get the chunkier bits near the blades... this released some of the powder into the air, starting a chain of sneezing that is worsened by opening the grinder. Store in spice jar or ziplock bag.

One of my adventures in cooking this past week was pork wonton dumplings! I've never made them before, so they looked really weird and uneven, but they tasted fantastic. Canadian Living for the win, again! All 28 of these got devoured pretty quickly.

Pork Wonton Dumplings

Ingredients

• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) minced gingerroot (the frozen stuff I made the ginger, lemongrass cookies out of made an appearance here)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) sesame oil
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
• 1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
• 12 oz (340 g) lean ground pork
• 1/2 cup (125 mL) grated carrots
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) finely chopped fresh coriander (I used a healthy sprinkling of parsley and coriander powder)
• 28 wonton wrappers
• 28 coriander leaves (very much optional, so far as I'm concerned)
• Dipping sauce
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) soy sauce

Preparation

In large bowl, whisk together egg white, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper. Add pork, carrot, green onions and coriander; mix together with hands until well combined.

Mmmmmm... Porky goodness.

Place 4 wonton wrappers on work surface, keeping remainder covered with damp cloth to prevent drying out; brush lightly with water. Place scant 1 tbsp (15 mL) pork mixture in centre of each; gather edges of wrapper and fold up like flower petals around filling, leaving 1-inch (2.5 cm) opening at top. Holding dumpling just under opening, tap on counter to flatten bottom. Repeat with remaining wrappers. (Make-ahead: Cover and refrigerate for up to 4 hours.) [This is where my lack of wonton construction knowledge didn't help me. I'm not sure what they meant by these instructions, so what I ended up doing was pulling all four corners towards the centre, and folding over the subsequently made folds and pinching them shut. That seemed to work pretty well.]

In wok or steamer, bring 2 inches (5 cm) water to boil. Line steamer tray with waxed paper; arrange dumplings, without touching, on paper. Place over wok; cover and steam, adding more water as necessary, until dumplings are firm, about 5 minutes. Repeat with any remaining dumplings. Place coriander leaf on top of each.

Dipping Sauce: In small bowl, mix vinegar with soy sauce; serve with dumplings.

Tip: If making dumplings ahead of time, use thick wonton wrappers available in supermarkets. For dumplings with less wrapper, choose thin wonton wrappers, found in most Oriental markets.