Recently, the members of the Community Kitchen prepared Nepali-style dumplings for children at an orphanage located in Kyaik Waing in northern Yangon. As usual, we stayed back after school for an afternoon of cooking. We used minced chicken, leek, onions, and some traditional (secret) spices to enhance the flavor of the dumplings. Considering the large number of children in the orphanage, we decided to make at least 200 dumplings.
Community kitchen members placing the mince into the covering.
Community kitchen members placing the mince into the covering.
Many of our members had never made dumplings before so this was a fun learning opportunity as well as a chance to serve the community. In order to save time, we had kneaded the dumpling dough beforehand. The folding styles of the dumplings varied from member to member and it led to the creation of all sorts of interesting shapes and sizes of dumplings. Although the preparation of dumplings took a little longer than usual, our desire to make the children happy kept us going. We also made Chinese dumplings as they were faster to prepare and would bring variety to our meal. We worked well together and as a result, by 4:00 P.M, we had a pot full of chicken dumplings ready to bring smiles (and hopefully burps) to the disabled children.
Our first batch of dumplings
Although we were unable to visit the orphanage this time, we enjoyed preparing food for other people. It is easy to take good food for granted when our families, restaurants, and cafeterias fulfill our needs, but the task of assembling ingredients, distributing jobs and the hands-on cooking experience for other people made this a humbling and rewarding experience. It taught us how simply by giving, we can make a small but impactful difference in someone else’s day.
- By Community Kitchen
- Published by Global
