On the Fifth Day…

… She Made Jiaozi (饺子)

To keep a link to our former life I decided to make the traditional dish eaten on the fifth day of the Chinese New Year (I also made sure not to sweep my house on New Year’s Eve or had a haircut but you can read other Chinese traditions around 'Spring Festival' here).

Eating Jiaozi used to be very simple; either we would go to one of our favorite restaurants just around the corner of our apartment or just dig into the almost endless frozen supply made by Ayi.

Ding Tang Fung

The real deal

Well this year the ayi is called Celine and this Ayi doesn’t have the dough readily available so she had to make it from scratch (something the real Ayi didn’t even do!). So here you are:

Making the dough:


Making the filling:


Making the Jiaozi:


Cooking the Jiaozi:


The Best part… Eating the Jiaozi:

You can either boiled them (水餃 - shuǐjiǎo), steamed them (蒸餃 - zhēngjiǎo) or shallow-fried them (鍋貼 - guōtiē or 煎餃 - jiānjiǎo) which is known as potstickers in the US.