The Dumpling Path

Tonight marked my second dumpling night in exactly a week, but unlike last time (post to come), I had leftover filling this time to "deal with."

I've had this idea in my head to make beef, tomato & egg dumplings for some time now, so after a trip to Flushing for a haircut, I also picked up everything I would need to make an Asian culinary feast.

Since I used store bought dumpling skins, it becomes all about the filling.

It started with some eggs, a hot pan, and oil.

The beginning

And then it took off from there - see below the process in picture collage form:

Starting from the top left, after the eggs were scrambled, I let them sit in the bowl to cool while getting started with the rest of the ingredients.

And by get started, I mean throw the following ingredients into a bowl and mix them all together: ground beef, scallions, raw egg, sesame oil, diced tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste. Add in the scrambled eggs, and we're ready to assemble the dumplings.

Once assembled, steam them in the pan, and voila! Dinner is served - with enough leftover to pack up for tomorrow's lunch! Problem was though (and really, it turned out to be the best kind of problem), I didn't end up using all of the filling with the dumpling skins that I had. Sooooo, I decided to stuff some Asian eggplants that I had also bought.

I chopped up the eggplants into segments so they would be easier to scoop out, rather than struggle trying to keep it all in one piece. Cut those segments in half, and then used a paring knife to take out the meat in the middle. Stuffed the scooped out pieces with the beef filling from the dumplings, and put them in a foil lined pan for baking. Drizzled everything with some sesame oil (my love) and soy sauce. Baked in the oven at 350 degrees for...actually I'm not really sure - maybe about half an hour covered, and then 10 min uncovered.

 

So now one may ask - what did you do with the meat of the eggplant segments??? A simple saute with some of my favorite flavors.

A few of my favorite things

First saute some garlic, scallions & shallots in a mix of vegetable and sesame oils. Your kitchen will smell something amazing. Throw in the eggplant pieces and season with soy sauce and maybe ground pepper to taste. Let everything sizzle for a little bit, then add some water and cover on medium/low heat. Once it starts boiling and most of the water has evaporated, uncover and turn up the heat. Then add some chili oil if you want (I did want), and some green scallions for the finishing touch!

 

To boot, after all of this, I was brought home some awesome grapefruit yogurt bubble tea from Kung Fu Tea! Life is good =)