Niu Rou Xian Bing (pan fried chinese hamburgers)... PICTURES AND VIDEO SOON TO COME

This is another favorite of mine... very similar to the egg/chive pockets described in the previous entry. I first tried these at my favorite Chinese restaurant back in the DC area (A&J's restaurant), where I've been going for like ten years now. I was instantly hooked and I order one basically every time I go there. The home made ones taste basically the same and are actually better, according to my brother.

Here's what you'll need:

- ground beef

- scallions

- soy sauce

- sesame oil

- peppercorn

- dough

- flour

- ginger

- MSG

First thing to do is of course to make the dough. We used three cups of flour and one cup of water (it was more than enough for four people). Pretty self explanatory, just mix it together and knead it until it's dough.

Put a tablespoon of peppercorn into a bowl and fill it up with three tablespoons of warm water. Let it soak for a bit.

Put the beef into a bowl and add the chopped scallions, chopped ginger, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, a pinch of MSG, three tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of cooking oil, and one tablespoon of sesame oil.

Once the peppercorns are soft, which shouldn't be TOO long, take them out (keep the water!) and crush them with a rolling pin:

Add the peppercorns AND the peppercorn water to the bowl with the ground beef mixture.

Mix it up until it's nice and homogeneous looking.

Now take the dough and divide it into about 12-15 parts. Take out a cutting board and sprinkle flour on it so the dough doesn't stick... then one by one, take each of the 12-15 parts and roll it out until it's a thin, flat circle.

Here's a video tutorial on how to fill each of them and roll them into the correct shape [The video is missing right now because my internet connection is too messed up to be able to upload videos onto youtube. I'm working on getting this fixed ASAP]:

Here's the end result of the wrapping process. Just a few of them:

Now all you gotta do is put some oil in the pan and fry them until golden brown on both sides.

DELICIOSO

Jiu Cai He Zi (egg and chive pockets)

Another favorite of mine. This dish has sentimental value to me... it's one that I've always loved growing up and just never got tired of. It's also REALLY REALLY simple and tastes great, despite the few ingredients required to make it. You will need:

- flour

- chives (preferably Chinese chives)

- eggs

Amounts are shown in the pictures. We had enough for about 12 pockets, which was more than enough for 4 people (though we did eat other things too).

First thing you want to do is make the dough. Pretty easy... just mix 3 parts flour with 1 part water and knead it. Here's a picture of my dad holding the finished dough:

Next, beat the eggs. We used 3 eggs but only because we didn't have enough left... I personally would've used 5 eggs because I like the egg to chive ratio to be a little higher.

Chop the chives up... use whatever amount you want. Add soy sauce and sesame oil to the chives and stir it up. We did a four to one ratio soy sauce to sesame oil... use however much of each that you want. It's all dependent on what you like.

Next cook the eggs... the way we did it was to cook it in a pancake-like fashion, then flip it over, and break it up.

Once the egg is cooked, mix it with the chives. Forgot to take a picture of this but you can probably imagine what it looks like.

It's time for the fun part... wrapping the pockets! Break off a ball of dough like somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball (closer to the golf ball), put some flour on it so it doesn't stick to whatever you're gonna roll it on, and get to work on it with the rolling pin. you want it to be pretty thin and circular shaped.

Proper rolling technique: hold the dough with one hand, roll hard with the other hand and stretch the dough out as much as possible with each motion, and rotate it after each time you roll it.

Next, put a bit of the egg/chive mixture into the pocket. Then wet your finger and wet the edges of the flattened circle of dough. You may find it helpful to have a bowl of water near where you'll be cooking. Decide which way you want to fold it, and then pinch the edges together to make the pockets.

Voila! Cooking is hella fun! Just ask Tony... lol.

Make as many as you can until you run out of either dough or chive/egg mixture. You'll want to cook these three or four at a time. Well, it actually depends on how big your pan is. Put oil into it, put the heat on medium-high, and put the pockets on the pan until they're slightly golden brown on both sides. The second picture below is definitely burnt... go more for the level of brown in the final picture. ENJOY! These things are SOOO GOOOOOD.