Cooking class, Day Three: Dumplings and noodles at Hutong Cuisine

Midway into my week of cooking, I switch schools. Goodbye to the Black Sesame Kitchen (only home to classes on Thursdays and Saturdays); hello Hutong Cuisine! (I learned that Hias Gourmet is actually a middleman company, and the cooking school I'll attend goes by the much more sensible Hutong Cuisine.) However, as too much change can be painful, my first class at the new school will mirror the last class at the old one. That's right, dumplings boot camp continues!

But first, we go on a tour of the market. Well, the "market" - it's more of a low budget grocery store, with several vendors, one of each type, crowded into a medium size building. Initial impressions aside, the tour does get interesting as we see some of the ingredients I've been most fascinated with so far.

There is the tofu vendor. He has it all. Northern tofu (firm, called "bei dou fu") and Southern tofu (silken, called "nan dou fu") in bulk, various kinds of smoked tofu, tofu noodles, and more.

The dry goods shop has all sorts of wonderful things. There are red chillies, Sichuan peppercorns, dried wood ear fungus, all sorts of berries and nuts with purported medicinal value, and so many kinds of soy sauce and vinegar. The top-of-the-line Sichuan peppercorns here go for Y10 for 50g. I am wondering how far off the price will be when I get back to the States...

There is the noodle shop, with fresh noodles of every sort. I saw him cutting and flouring a new batch while we were walking around. Delicious!

And, of course, produce. Lots of tasty items, both familiar and strange. Gorgeous (though I'm betting bitter) bitter melon and some skinny green peppers that stand in for bell peppers with a little bit more pep particularly caught my eye. And so many greens!

From the market, it was back to the hutong courtyard, where the seasonings class took place. Very similar info to that provided in the intro at Black Sesame. The one piece of new info is that there are grades of both soy sauces and Chinese black vinegars, with higher numbers in the concentration of certain ingredients corresponding to more flavor (and higher price).

Then, it was dumpling time! Same basic three steps, though we started with making the filling. Our menu today had four filling types: pork and chives, pork and cabbage, beef and cilantro, and egg and chives (a nod to the vegetarian in our midst).

These weren't too complicated to make. Finely dice the vegetables. For those with high water content (I'm looking at you, cabbage), salt and let sit for 10 minutes, then squeeze out the water. Meanwhile, add light soy, cooking wine, ginger, and sesame oil to the meat, stirring it together all in one direction. Add water as necessary in small batches until you get a spongy coherent mess of meat. Then add the vegetables and stir in.

There was also a neat trick for peeling ginger. Using the back (blunt) end of the cleaver, scrape the ginger roughly and the skin comes right off, especially on fresh ginger. Quick and easy!

Next step, making the dough. With flour, add water in small batches, turning to create dough. Add water if too dry and flour if too sticky. Knead and knead and knead and end with a nice ball of dough. Cover to stop it from drying out. Then, roll it out into a long thin cylinder, about the diameter of a ping pong ball. Finally, cut off pieces, rotating dough by 90 degrees on the parallel axis each time.

Finally, add the filling to the dumplings and wrap. Flatten the dumplings with the middle palm of your hand, leaving the middle thicker than the edges of the small disc. Using a rolling stick, roll out the dumplings by rolling halfway, spinning the the dumpling skin 30 degrees with each roll. Two revolutions should be sufficient. Put the dumpling skin in your left hand, fill with moderate amount of filling goodness, then pinch one end closed. Now, on one side only, make a little fold, pinch together, and lightly attach to other side. Repeat all the way across to get a nice crescent shape in the dumpling.

With piles of prepared dumplings in hand, head to the kitchen. There, we learned how to pan-fry, steam, or boil the dumplings. Pan-fry method was the same as at Black Sesame, putting in a pan and crisping up the bottom, then adding water to half the dumplings' height and covering to let steam. Steam was straightforward, 8 minutes for veggie dumplings, 10 to 12 for meat dumplings. Boil was also easy, just make sure to turn down the heat when you boil them so they don't explode everywhere. The end result: many delicious dumplings to eat.

As side dishes, we saw the preparation of two vegetables. One was watermelon radish, which was julienned and then tossed in a sweet and sour sauce of sugar, salt, and vinegar. The Chinese cucumber was smashed repeatedly with the cleaver, coarsely chopped, and seasoned with a spicy and sour sauce comprised of chilli oil, sugar, salt, and vinegar, and a dash of sesame oil.

As an extra treat, Chunyi, our teacher, made handcut noodles. She rolled out a cylinder of dough until it resembled a large pancake. Then, with quick folds interspersed by flour, followed by vertical slices, long shreds of noodles emerged. After an instantaneous bath in hot water, these were ready to eat.

It was a good day of dumplings, deja vu. The extra practice made the techniques stickier in my mind (and my dough less so). It was fun to meet the Hutong Cooking crew - especially because Chunyi is teaching another staff member English, and so would repeatedly shout "English!" when the staffer would ask her a question or make a comment in Chinese. Repeatedly.