dumplings of sweet squash, creamy tofu, and crunchy, spicy watercress, fried with chunks of garlic

I haven't spent much time at the Multicultural Center at my university, and now I'm wondering why. Random, exciting circumstance found me there in a recent afternoon, barging gleefully into the tail end of a dumpling making lesson. A nice student was bashing flour and water against the sides of a pot and then rolling the thick dough out with the stick of her wooden spoon. She handed me a tea-saucer-sized round and centered some pork and green onions on it with chopsticks.

My friend GL, who had called me over to the delicious-smelling pink-walled building, and who had a plate full of dumplings already at this point, is fantastic in many ways. One of these ways is sculpting. With a few comments from the dough lady, GL showed me how to fold the dumplings properly. (Hers were much prettier than mine, obviously. Hers were much prettier than some works of art, and they tasted good, too). We took them back to my dorm kitchen and had them, boiled and then fried with garlic, for breakfast the next morning.

That by itself would've made my day, but as we packed up our plates of dumplings, we were told there was a multicultural dinner that evening. Free. Indian, Japanese, and Mexican food, and dessert, purely in exchange for our glowing presence. GL and I exchanged meaningful glances. (We were out of commons meals for the week.) In an hour we were back, and hungry.

The food was wonderful. It made me homesick for a place where tandoori chicken, boba tea, and good sushi are not minorities. (Bay Area, I'll be back soon! I just have a few midterms and finals to get through first).

GL and I were quite taken with the dumplings, so after breakfasting on them that next morning with our friend The Snark, we hatched a scheme to have them for dinner too. Weekend Wokking's May ingredient is tofu, so I volunteered that for the filling. We also decided that a great deal more green onion than our MCC friends had included was necessary. From there our plottings only grew grander. Results below.

(I'm not too impressed with my pictures of this. Sorry. Trust me, this was considerably more delicious than it looks here. Actually, even knowing what was going in it, seeing the green and orange and white of the filling, smelling them fry in the garlic, I was surprised at how tasty it was).

Tofu and Squash Dumplings
1/2 C cubed banana squash
2 heads small baby bok choi, diced
1/2 C green onion, diced
1/4 onion, diced
1/4 C diced watercress (or more, if you like it's crunch and subdued tang. I do. The watercress in this came out of a can. I'm not quite sure what real live watercress looks like).
1 pkg firm tofu, diced
1/4 C soy sauce

flour
water

For the filling:
In a bowl, cover the banana squash with water. Microwave for ten minutes or until soft. Mash.
Saute the bok choi in 2 Tb soy sauce. Saute the onion.
Mix squash, watercress, bok choi, sauted onion, green onion, tofu, and soy sauce in a large bowl.

For the dough:
Combine flour and water until a stiff dough forms. To test, take a small ball and roll it out on a floured surface. It should be stiff, but when you fold it in half it shouldn't break or crack. If it breaks or cracks, add more water. If it's squishy and soft and wet, add more flour. Don't worry to much about it. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just had to hold the filling.

You probably want to get a pot of water boiling, at this point.

Making the dumpling:
Roll out a bit of dough into a flat circle about the size of your palm. Put about 2 Tb filling in the center (depending on how large your palm is). It's better to have less than more, because you want to be able to seal everything properly. 

Now, fold the circle in half and pinch the upper edges together tightly. Just to the side of the crease you just made, pinch part of the dough edge together. Fold that flap toward the center and seal it to the edge. Repeat until you're out of dough, then do the same on other half of that face. Also, look at the pictures.

Add the dumping to the boiling water and cook 7-12 minutes.

In a wide, flat-bottomed pan heat some olive oil and some chopped garlic. (That odd little square thing? On the first picture? That's aromatic, beautiful, chewy, spicy, and sweet caramelized garlic. Yeah). Fry the boiled dumpling until delicious.

Sweet and Salty Dipping Sauce
1/4 C soy sauce
1 Tb brown sugar
1/8 tsp (or more) of your favorite spice. (We used cayenne pepper, because it's all we had, but something more saucelike and less powdery would be better).
sesame seeds (optional; for the sprinkling)

Mix soy sauce, sugar, and spice. If you're feeling extra special, boil it down a little to thicken.

Look at all that garlic! But I digress. That was last month's special ingredient...

I'm submitting this post to Weekend Wokking, hosted this month by Sweatha of Tasty Curry Leaf. Weekend Wokking is a monthly international food blogging event centered around the celebration of a single ingredient in as many tasty dishes as possible. This month's ingredient is TOFU. Weekend Wokking is the brain-child of WC of Wandering Chopsticks. Thank you WC! Thank you Sweatha for hosting!

This was the focus of another exciting group dinner night. We made vast, towering, aweinspiring amounts of dumplings. They were delicious, chewy, soft, warm, and tasty, but we didn't eat until we were stuffed. There was a blackberry-blueberry pie, by our fabulous Pi Queen, sitting off  to the side, eyeing us smugly. We knew we had to save room. 

This time I'm being, by request, more explicit in my teasing: Nyah nyah. Doesn't that look delicious? The Snark, who dislikes cinnamon in her pies, says The Pi Queen is slowly converting her.