Dun dun dun....dumplings.

Lets just say YUM! and... I'm FULL! Ok, I'll start at the beginning.

Wanton Wrappers:
2 c flour
1/2 tsp mixed into
1 egg
~1/3 c water
Mix (with chopsticks), knead and let sit for 30-60 minutes.

Then roll out thin, cut into circles. Then roll again thinner. Use FLOUR between the circles (unlike me).

Dumpling Filling (what I had in the fridge):
celery (wish I'd had cabbage or Chinese cabbage)
carrots
green onion (the growth from my impressive growing white onion)
diced game bird meat (can use ground pork, beef, shrimp, etc)

Chop ingredients finely (finer than mine)

Seasoning
pour over your veggie and meat mix:
2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
6 TBS sesame oil



filling, not fine enough but it worked


Then take each circle, put about 1/2-1 TBS of filling into each. Use water to dampen the edge of half of your circle and close to make your dumpling.

You can then pan fry (I used lard) or boil for about 3-5 minutes. My family liked both, I liked the fried best but others liked boiled the best.

Note: if your wrapper is ripped the filling won't escape in the oil like it will in the water.

For our side dish I took all the left over rice from our game bird bake and turned it into fried rice, which is basically where you heat up your rice with any extra veggies you want in there:

rice with veggies heating

Then when warm added 4 eggs in a hole in the rice and fried them, then mixed them in and then added some spinach (or lettuce). I based this off of my mother-in-law's chicken fried rice recipe, we love it.

picture of our dinner, really good

Very enjoyable meal. I can always tell my husband likes it when he has seconds then thirds.

I wish the dumplings aren't so time consuming, but they are fun to make. My 5 and 7 year old ended up making the bulk of them and I decided to give them artistic leeway so they could wrap them the easiest way for them.

Baking Game Birds

I wanted to do a quick post on what I made Thursday night's dinner: game birds. 

When my husband got our four wheeler it opened up a whole new world to him in regard to hunting birds. Before that he'd take small trips to find flocks of ptarmigan to shoot but there are spruce hen and ducks all around us out here.

Some of the guys on a local hunting excursion. I believe these are Grouse but I really don't remember.

In my daughter's shot gun club (Grouse Ridge Rangers) they sometimes have sponsored shoots out at the Falcon Ridge located out Point MacKenzie Rd. He sells chukars (chukar partridge) and pheasants for them to shoot and she brought home 2 of each last year.

My husband had asked if he was wasting his time since he's the only one who had cooked any of the meat so far (ptarmigan nuggets, YUM!) and so I told him to give me some recipes so I'd have an idea. My sister makes these for her family all the time, but I have ventured into this. He printed out 9 pages of recipes.

On Thursday I took about half of our game birds out of the freezer to cook so that we could try them all with the same cooking method and see what we like best. I made a duck, two pheasants, two chukars, and 3 spruce hen. I put rice on the bottom of the 9x13 pans and put a nice Chinese bbq sauce over them, added water to the rice and baked them at 350 for about 2 hours. The recipes I was looking at for game birds varied all over the place from cooking for 20 minutes to 4 hours, so I tried somewhere in between. I put them into the oven and left for 2 hours. When I came home they were cooked, a bit dry (should have added more water and covered tighter) and gobbled them up with the fam. Since there were so many my husband picked the meat off and I cooked the carcases overnight and made a broth (no fat!) and used the extra meat for fried rice and dumplings.

Baked Barbecued Game Birds:

(feeds ~4 people)
1 1/2 c. rice
2-3 birds whole, thawed

Marinade
1/4 c soy sauce
2 garlic cloves-minced
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp Five Spice powder (if you double the recipe, don't add quite as much spice)
2 TBS oil

Wash and dry birds. Mix marinade, rub birds inside and out, let stand for an hour (I didn't have time for this, still good).
Grease 9x13 casserole dish or a dutch oven, pour in rice. Add 3 cups of water, or a bit more if using foil or a loose lid to cover. Arrange birds on top, add more marinade to birds. Cover tightly.
Bake at 350 for ~2 hours. Add more marinade during the cooking if you have more. Check your rice and add water if needed.

Here's a link to my basic Roasted Chicken recipe. I use it for roosters, hens, meat chickens and game birds too. I almost like it better because the 5spice powder is so distinct, you have to be choosy on what recipes to use with the leftovers.

Enjoy.

pheasant pair, light meat, tastes like chicken, medium size closer to small chicken



chukar partradge, light meat, tastes like chicken, small in size




spruce hen (or grouse, not sure of difference) dark meat, tastes like chicken, small in size