Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 170 Making Dumplings

Without hesitation, she conjured up pink chunks of pork with white marbling in them, which appeared out of thin air in two clean stainless steel basins she had prepared. The heavy pieces of meat slammed into the bottom of the basins with a dull thud. She placed both basins in a corner of the stove, where the pork would thaw slowly with the help of the stove's heat. This process would take time, which she could use to prepare the other ingredients.

She took out a few more cabbages and placed them on the thick wooden cutting board. She began to chop the cabbages rhythmically, the dense sounds echoing in the quiet kitchen. The emerald white cabbage leaves quickly turned into fine and even pieces of cabbage under her knife.

She must have used up a lot of energy today, because her arms soon felt sore and swollen, but she didn’t stop until the cabbages had turned into two large bowls of fluffy crumbs. Then she sprinkled a few spoonfuls of salt evenly on the cabbage crumbs, mixed them thoroughly with her hands, and set them aside to rest.

While waiting for the cabbage to release its water and the meat to thaw, she began preparing to knead the dough. She poured several large bowls of flour into a clean, wide basin, took out a kettle from her storage space, mixed it with tap water to make warm water at a suitable temperature, and slowly poured it into the flour pile. While pouring the water, she quickly stirred it from the center outwards with chopsticks. When the water and flour met, they quickly formed large and small dough flakes.

When most of the dry flour in the basin had turned into wet dough flakes, with only a little dry flour left at the bottom, she put down her chopsticks, washed her hands, rolled up her sleeves, and began to knead the dough by hand.

She would occasionally add a little dry flour to absorb excess moisture, or use her hands to moisten the overly dry dough with a little water, depending on the feel of the dough. The low temperature in the kitchen slowed down the dough's rise, giving her more time to adjust.

Sweat beaded on her forehead. Gradually, the originally messy and sticky dough began to become smooth, supple, and elastic under her continuous kneading. Less and less flour stuck to her hands, and the bowl became drier and drier, until the dough was kneaded into a smooth, large dough ball.

She tidied up the dough with satisfaction and placed the basin next to the stove, letting the dough rise quietly in the relatively warm environment.

At this point, she discovered a problem—without a rolling pin, making dumplings is not like making steamed buns where you can just knead and shape them. You have to roll the small dough balls into thin, round wrappers. Without the right tools, efficiency will be greatly reduced, and it may even be difficult to succeed.

Her gaze swept across every corner of the kitchen: the cleaver? Too wide and thick; the spoon handle? Too short and thin; the chopsticks? Couldn't roll; the stainless steel bowl? Difficult to handle.

Finally, her gaze fell on the watermelon knife by the stove, then swept over the pile of firewood of varying thicknesses in the corner.

Xu Xiaoyan walked to the woodpile, carefully selected a piece of wood about the thickness of her wrist, washed it clean with cold water from the bucket, and then began to whittle the wood with a watermelon knife.

This is no easy task. After all, a watermelon knife is not a professional woodworking knife. Although the blade is sharp, it is quite difficult to use it to carve round wood. She has to be very careful and control the force and angle. She has to gradually carve one end of the wood into a thinner and rounder shape to make the "shaft" of a rolling pin, while avoiding injuring herself or splitting the wood.

She meticulously adjusted the knife, wood shavings falling gently, her fingers trembling slightly from the effort, and the handle of the knife digging painfully into her thumb.

It took her about half an hour to make a simple rolling pin! She rinsed the sawdust off with water, dried it with a cloth, and tried rolling it on the cutting board. Although it wasn't as smooth and effortless as a store-bought rolling pin, it was definitely usable!

At this point, the pork in the bowl has gradually softened and can be easily cut with a knife, but the inside is still at a low temperature, which makes it easy to chop the filling.

She took the meat to the cutting board, first cutting it into thick slices, then into long strips, then into small cubes. Next, she began to chop the meat rhythmically. The blade collided with the wooden cutting board, making a dense and dull sound. Soon, through repeated chopping, it turned into a fine minced meat with a slightly grainy texture. She put the chopped pork into a clean large bowl.

At this moment, the cabbage pickled in salt had released a lot of water and become soft and limp. Xu Xiaoyan added the chopped cabbage to the bowl of minced pork, picked up her chopsticks, and stirred in the same direction to fully combine the minced pork, cabbage, salt, and oil until the minced pork became sticky.

She took the dough out of the bowl, placed it on a cutting board sprinkled with a thin layer of dry flour, kneaded it repeatedly, then rolled the large dough into a long strip, cut it into small, evenly sized pieces, arranged them neatly in a corner of the cutting board, and covered them with a damp cloth to prevent them from drying out.

Then I picked up a dough ball, placed it in my palm, and gently flattened it into a small round cake with my floured palm. Then I picked up the homemade rolling pin.

The first attempt did not go smoothly. The dough rolled unevenly under the rough wooden stick, and the rolled-out dough was crooked, thick on one side and thin on the other, and not even round. She frowned, slowed down, adjusted her hand gestures, and tried to push the rolling pin with more even force, while her left hand gently rotated the dough.

The second, the third... Gradually, she got the hang of it. Although the rolling pin wasn't as good as a professional one and required more strength and control, the dough she rolled out became more and more rounded and the thickness became more and more even. After rolling out all the dough, she started making dumplings.

Pick up a rolled-out dough sheet and place it in the palm of your left hand. Use chopsticks in your right hand to pick up an appropriate amount of filling and place it in the center of the dough sheet. Gently press the filling with your left thumb, and use your right index finger and thumb to lift the edge of the dough sheet from one side, fold it in half to cover the filling. Then, using the pads of your thumb and index finger, starting from one end, carefully and firmly pinch the two edges together. At the same time, gently rotate the dumpling with your left hand.

With the deft pinching motion of her right fingertips, a row of fine, dense, and very solid pleats appeared on the edge of the dumpling. Finally, she pinched the end tightly, and a crescent-shaped dumpling was made in her hand!

Xu Xiaoyan's mind went blank for a moment. She remembered something from the past: her adoptive father had once said that when making dumplings, it was important to make twelve pleats, which symbolized a complete and fulfilling life! From then on, every dumpling she made had twelve pleats!

Later, when Xu Xiaoyan got a little older, she realized she had been tricked. People from Jiangnan didn't eat dumplings at all. The idea of ​​twelve pleats was probably something her adoptive father read in a book or made up himself, just to add some fun to the dumpling-making process for her.

Xu Xiaoyan quietly wrapped the dumplings, and the only sounds in the kitchen were the soft rustling of her fingertips as she pinched them together, and the occasional sound of the wind coming from outside the window.