The ultimate " Slow Food": Snail Pancakes and Chinese dumplings

We had Ting and Risa over for Easter weekend. They are a lovely Taiwanese couple who own a certified organic farm "Formosa Nursery" (specialize in blueberries now) in Maple Ridge near Vancouver. Sherlene acquainted them at an organic convention in Feb. Being Taiwanese, Canadian and organic, we really hit it off and enjoyed each other's company immensely. They wanted to know more about growing vegetables, so they came to visit our farm and came to the farmer's market with us on Saturday. At the end of Saturday, we laboured hard together for a mouth watering feast that consisted of "snail" pancakes and Chinese dumplings stuffed with lamb and cilantro. The results was well worth the effort!

The making of snail pancakes

step 1: make a dough using flour and boiling hot water. knead the dough into a long rope and use a rolling pin to roll it out into a long, thing, rectangular (ideally), flat piece



step 2: apply vegetable oil liberally on the flat piece, and then sprinkle salt and pepper



step 3: spread chunks of oriental green onions (thicker stemmed ones are better) over the dough. onions don't need to be chopped too finely



step 4: wrap the onions inside the flat piece of dough and form into a long rope-like thing. Be careful not to squeeze out the green onion chunks



step5: start from one end of the rope, roll it into a snail shell shaped round disk





step 6: use the hands to press the snail-shell shaped round disk, to make it flatter and formed more tightly



step 7: put it on an oiled skillet over medium heat. pan-fried about 5-10 minutes each side. cover the skillet with a lid to create a steaming action in the skillet so the pancake is fried and steamed at the same time. We coined this green onion pancake "snail pancake" not only because of it's shape, but also because of the slow process it requires to make it



until it's golden brown and crispy



cut into pieces and serve! it tasted divine! I declare that no body on the face of this earth should not like this pancake (unless they don't like green onions, but even if one doesn't like green onions he should be easily converted into liking green onions by the cooked, savory, juicy and aromatic green onions embedded in this "snail pancake"



Dumpling making party! (a great party/team building idea for any one who's looking for one)



David cooking dumplings. He looked solemn in this pictures, maybe he was just way too hungry



the fruits of our labour: snail pancake and boiled dumplings stuffed with lamb and cilantro



another way to cook dumplings: pot stickers