Frozen dumplings become hard because the water evaporates and the whole dumplings are completely frozen. After put into the pot, the outside is heated and expanded, but the inside is still very cold and hard, and the different expansion ratio leads to cracking. When cooking jiaozi, it is hard to cook for a long time, because jiaozi kept it in the freezer for too long, and some of it was not cooked evenly. It's best to wait for the water to boil, then put jiaozi in and stir it gently.

Yuanxiao and sweet dumplings

North Lantern Festival is a production process based on stuffing and glutinous rice flour as the facade. The process is simple and easy to learn. First, mix the fillings, then spread them into large round pieces, cool them and cut them into cubes larger than table tennis. Then put the stuffing into a dustpan, pour in a proper amount of rice flour and shake well. As the fillings collide with each other and become spherical, glutinous rice also sticks to the surface of the fillings, forming Yuanxiao.

Jiaozi in the south is completely different from Yuanxiao, a bit like Bao jiaozi. First, the glutinous rice flour is stirred with water and soaked for several hours. Then mix all the stuffing materials together and put them in a big bowl for later use. The water content of dumpling stuffing is more than that of Yuanxiao, which is one of the differences between them. The process of wrapping jiaozi is also like that of jiaozi, but there is no rolling pin.

Wet glutinous rice flour is sticky, so we have to pull a small group of wet noodles by hand and squeeze them into a circle. Pick a ball of stuffing with chopsticks or a thin bamboo chip tool and put it on the glutinous rice chip, then turn it over with your hands and rub it into a ball and a circle. The surface of the finished jiaozi is smooth and shiny, and some of them are pointed, like a peach. However, the skin of glutinous rice balls already contains enough water, which is very sticky and difficult to preserve. You'd better cook it now.