Happy Lunar New Year!

“My girlfriend made 68 dumplings!”
“In a row?”

(Apologies to Kevin Smith for that one.) Okay, so everybody in Sydney’s going nuts over Chinese New Year, but you know what? It’s Korean Lunar New Year too! So instead of wishing you “Kung Hei Fat Choy,” I’m going to say “sae-hae-bok mah-ni bah-de-sei-yo” instead. We’re going to be celebrating tomorrow with some traditional dduk mandu guk, a yummy dumpling soup. But before you can make dumpling soup, you gotta make dumplings! I printed out Ellie’s recipe (have I mentioned how much I love her Korean recipes?) the other day, complete with a photo of the beef dashida so I could be sure to get the right stuff. Today I headed to Miracle at World Square to get the ingredients. (There was some confusion on the part of the butchers about what exactly constitutes “beef brisket,” but we got there in the end.) Tonight I managed to sweet-talk the Snook into helping me with the prep work, and then I got to work shaping the dumplings. I haven’t had much luck with making gyoza in the past, but Ellie’s instructions were so great that I didn’t have any trouble at all. I made 68 of them before running out of gow gee wrappers, and they’re all chilling in the freezer as we speak. I can’t wait to eat them tomorrow!