CHINESE TORTELLINI

In the English language, many terms are generic.  Take "Aunt" and "Uncle" for instance.  By Western definition my father's sister is my aunt.  So is my Mother's sister.  For us Chinese we are very particular when it comes to "kinship" terms.  For example:

My father's younger sister is my gu-gu (姑姑）
My father's elder sister is my gu-ma （姑妈）
My mother's younger sister is my a-yi（阿姨）
My mother's elder sister is my yi-ma （姨妈）

When the Chinese are required to translate the names of food into English, however, they decide to become generic.  For instance, 云吞  水饺 粽子  饺子  锅贴  are all known as “dumplings”.  It gets pretty confusing if you're a foreigner visiting a local food court for the first time.

Once upon a time, my Taiwanese friend, Joanne, taught me to make jiaozhi (饺子) Since then, Mum and I would make a batch every Chinese New Year. To me a 饺子 is really Tortellini.

Traditionally we fill our dumplings with chives (韭菜) and minced pork. This year - horrors of horrors! - chives were completely sold out at our wet market!  I blame the influx of China expats. They must've bought up every last strand!  So we made do with pork + Chinese mushrooms + finely chopped water chestnuts.  Our jiaozhi ended up tasting like wonton.  Delicious nevertheless.  I gobbled up seven in one seating.