Students and visitors were welcomed this afternoon by Chinese teacher, Lucy Ding to join in the Chinese New Year Celebrations at Ellesmere College.
Gorgeous smells filled St Oswald’s Kitchen with students creating two types of Chinese lucky dumplings, Pork mince with Chinese cabbages and Beef mince with onions. green beans and carrots.
With a history of more than 1,800 years, dumplings (饺子 Jiǎozi /jyaoww-dzrr/) are a classic Chinese food, and a traditional dish eaten on Chinese New Year’s Eve, widely popular in China, especially in North China.
Chinese dumplings can be made to look like Chinese silver ingots (which are not bars, but boat-shaped, oval, and turned up at the two ends). Legend has it that the more dumplings you eat during the New Year celebrations, the more money you can make in the New Year.
Dumplings generally consist of minced meat and finely-chopped vegetables wrapped in a thin and elastic dough skin. Popular fillings are minced pork, diced shrimp, fish, ground chicken, beef, and vegetables. They can be cooked by boiling, steaming, frying or baking.
Students also took part in a Chinese Calligraphy session, learning how to write the most popular and luckiest Chinese Characters ,“ 福 (fu)” which means “ blessing ; happiness; good luck and good fortune.
