The Making of 韭菜盒子

Today (May 29, 2022), Mei-O was going to make some 蔥油餅 (scallion pancakes), but then thought about all the 韭菜 (Chinese chives) she recently picked from her garden and decided instead to make 韭菜盒子 (from Wikipedia: "a type of Chinese savory pocket pie.") As she went through the various steps, I documented the process which can be seen below.

It all starts out with cutting fresh 韭菜 from Mei-O's "wild side" garden.

In the kitchen, preparing the dough, just flour and water, is the first step.

The filling starts with about this much freshly picked and cleaned Chinese chives, ...

...which then need to be cut into about ½" pieces.

Next, eggs need to be scrambled. Mei-O used five today.

Mei-O uses ground turkey, but ground pork works just as well. She used about 1¼ lbs. today.

One bunch of "plastic noodles" (mung bean threads)...

...get soaked in water to soften them, then cut into shorter strands before adding them to the ground turkey.

Then the scrambled eggs are added, and it's all mixed together, making sure the turkey is well-browned.

Finally, the chives are added, ...

...and everything is all mixed together (with a tiny bit of soy sauce added) to complete the delicious filling!

Now back to the dough. Kneading, ...

...cutting to size, ...

...and rolling it out to form the shell.

Time to form the 韭菜盒子 by adding the filling to the shell...

...and folding and shaping them like this.

And finally, pan frying them to a golden brown for a delicious treat!

Yummm!