Pea Leaf ...I love you...I really do....

 

I have been visiting my friend Ju, The Little Teochew and always drooling over her delicious looking food. If you have not been to visit her you must. She inspired me to take a trip to an Asian Supermarket on Saturday to get some supplies to make my own dumplings.Ever since Ju blogged about them, I have been dreaming of them.  Of course my husband and I spent a lovely afternoon wandering around buying so many wonderful things. I have made homemade gyoza before with store bought wrappers. These pics were of my first try. Not perfectly pleated...but not too bad. We had gone to a huge Japanese supermarket that day and my son the future engineer who also studies Japanese and has been to Japan on an exchange program, wanted me to make gyoza in the worst way.

Like his host Mother had made for him....

So I did...His birthday is coming up and he will be home for Spring Break at the beginning of March, so I would like to be able to have some homemade dumplings for him when he gets home. He will love them.

 

This time I am going to try to make my own dumpling skins. I even bought a little rolling pin to try to do the job...and I got some ready made dumpling skins to have ready in case I screw up! I will report back when I get to that project. I have a new cookbook called "Asian Dumplings",by Andrea Nguyen and I have been reading it from cover to cover. I wish I could be sitting with Ju at her kitchen table making dumplings, but I will think of her when I am making them.

One of my dear friends is Chinese and she introduced me to Pea Leaf( or pea shoots) at a Chinese New Year luncheon some years ago and I have been hooked ever since. Sometimes I crave it. I have to have it....

                                                       I dream about it!!!!!!

 

I love greens...all kinds of greens, especially Asian greens...but one of my favorite ones is pea leaf. The leaves(shoots) of the snow pea or sugar snap pea. Hard to find unless you go to an Asian market.I have had really tiny baby ones which we eat raw and I love them for salads and for sandwiches.  I got a big bag of them and prepared them simply, with no meat. Just a little oyster sauce, some sesame oil,some garlic,a touch of sugar, and ginger. They more or less steamed briefly with just the water that clung to the leaves, almost like spinach. When we go to our favorite Chinese restaurant we usually have Pea Leaf with shredded chicken. One of my favorite dishes. I also got some wonderful tofu and prepared a simple version of Ma Po Tofu( I cheated and used an already prepared sauce, sorry!)....a little rice and Mike and I were in heaven...

 

I was so happy to spend the afternoon stocking up on some wonderful ingredients. It is difficult to get the right ground pork for the dumplings in our supermarkets. I bought some and made little packages for the freezer. I found some Shanghai Springroll wrappers, those are in the freezer. I got some new soy sauces , light and dark, and wonderful oyster sauce,bean paste, lots of veggies which were so much less expensive then in my usual supermarkets. Some more things that I can not even remember. We also bought some steamed pork buns which we ate in the car on the way home.

We were both feeling sick with bad colds but happy with all of our purchases...and our adventure. We used to have an Asian supermarket fairly close by to home but it closed. This one is a bit out of the way and I had never been there before. I will be going back for sure.

I have some Shanghai Baby Bok Choy in the fridge for tomorrow and I hope to get some dumplings made

if I can....so I will report back. This was so much fun!
I have no actual recipes to give you because I kind of winged it this time...
But for the Pea Leaf I used this as a guide....
Thanks Ju,  for being so inspirational to me...I love traveling to your world every time I open up your beautiful blog.