My Tita Jean is a fantastic cook. During Noche Buena (Christmas Eve in Tagalog), she cooked ho to tay, a Filipino-Chinese dumpling soup recipe, and made her own dumplings and stock. The stock has little bits of blanched bok choy and fried garlic in it. It’s a fairly complicated dish to make, as there are a lot of parts to it, but trust that it’s absolutely fabulous.

My mother gave me a copy of “Let’s Cook with Nora” for Christmas, and so I found this recipe for ho to tay that I wanted to share with everyone in Tita Jean’s honor. This isn’t her recipe, it’s Nora Daza’s (the Filipino version of Martha Stewart circa 1970s).

Recipe:

Combine ingredients for the filling together: 1/2 water chestnuts (or singcamas, which you will not find here in DC), 1/4 c green onion, 2 tsp soy sauce, salt, pepper 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1/4 c shrimps, chopped, 1/2 c cooked ham, chopped, 5 pcs dried mushrooms (any kind) soaked then chopped.

Broth:

2o pcs. wonton wrappers
8 c. chicken broth
20 large shrimps, peeled
1 chicken breast, sliced
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 egg white
1 carrot, diced
5 pcs. dried mushroom, soaked then sliced
1 bunch Chinese cabbage, cut into bite sized pieces (see photo)
1 c. pea pods

Wrap filling in wonton paper. Set aside. Boil chicken broth, drop shrimps in. Coat chicken and pork with cornstarch and egg white mixed together. Add to broth. Simmer until done. Add dumplings in. Simmer 5 minutes, put in mushrooms, veggies and season with salt and pepper. Cook until done.

Dude, if you can master this, more power to you. My Tita Jean made it fresh for us during our Christmas party and the whole thing was just really authentic and delicious. Good luck.