小时候乡下老家过年，尤以做蛋饺的场景最为温馨。一家人守着炭盆聊天的时候，祖母左手拿着汤勺，右手边是一小块肥肉或猪油，和一碗打散的鸡蛋。不锈钢的汤勺在炭火上烧热，用猪油轻轻一抹，汤勺里几乎不留油迹，却已变成一个小小的不粘锅。这时候祖母舀一小勺蛋液，把汤勺晃晃，就出来一个圆圆的蛋饼。坐在旁边的母亲，灵巧地用筷子从手里的碗中夹一团肉馅放到蛋饼中间，再顺手把蛋皮牵起，对折好，一个蛋饺就做成了。大家说着话的功夫，不知不觉中就做出一盆黄灿灿的金元宝来。
Among my childhood memories, the homiest is the scene of egg dumpling making for the Lunar New Year.
I grew up in a remote village between the Yangtz and the Huai rivers. There people get warm by burning charcoal in an iron pot in the winter. And Grandma would make egg dumplings with Mom on our charcoal warming pot, using a soup ladle.
The work was usually carried out a couple of days before New Year's eve, mostly after dinner. While our whole family sitting around the charcoal warming pot, chatting casually, Grandma set up her workplace by putting a little piece of lard or raw pork fat and a bowl of bitten egg at her right hand side and holding a soup ladle in her left hand. Heated on the burning charcoal, the stainless steel soup ladle became a mini nonstick frying pan after been seasoned by a thin layer of lard. Then Grandma poured a teaspoon of liquid egg into her mini pan, shook it lightly, and a tiny little round egg crepe appeared. Now Mom, sitting next to Grandma with a bowl of ground pork mixture in her hand, put a proper lump of meat in with a pair of chopsticks, folded the egg crepe and closed it up, right in time before the egg became too dry to seal. An egg dumpling was done in just a few blinks of an eye.
A big bowl of egg dumplings -- visually a full heap of gold treasure -- were easily made while we were still talking.
今年的春节特别忙，本来年夜饭是准备糊弄的，却因为突然想念起这份年味儿，而忍不住跑去买了大小合适的汤勺，回家认真做起了蛋饺。
I have been running on a very tight schedule lately and I wasn't planning to do serious cooking for the Lunar New Year. But I failed to resisit the longing for reliving such sweet moments after they were recalled. So I bought a proper soup ladle from a local Chinese store, and made egg dumplings my old folk's way for the first time.
【汤勺 The Stainless Steel Soup Ladle】
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【蛋饺制作流程 The Cooking Process】
蛋饺的做法极简单：猪瘦肉切成末，略剁，加姜末、盐、胡椒粉、料酒，拌匀。鸡蛋打入碗中，放微量食盐，用筷子打散。三两猪肉，四个中号鸡蛋，做出了三十个蛋饺和六张迷你鸡蛋皮。
The ingredients and recipe are extremely simple. The filling is made of lean pork, ground or finely chopped, well mixed with minced ginger, salt, white pepper powder and cooking wine, while the wrapping just well beaten eggs with a tiny pinch of salt.
With 5 onces of pork and 4 medium eggs, I made 30 egg dumplings and 6 mini egg crepes in less than an hour.
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【成品 Finished Product】
由于左手要一直端着“锅”，只能单独由右手抓起手机来拍照，所以照片都拍糊了。可我还是很满足，因为心中的童年美好仍然清晰真切。离家多年以后，我又感受到了幼时浓浓的年味儿，而这曾经遥远的异国他乡，如今也已成为故乡。
Even though the photos I took with one hand while the other had to hold my mini "frying pan" were out of focus, the lovely scenes in my memory are very real and clear. After being away for so many years, I am finally able to enjoy the old taste of New Year again. And the little town where I live right now, once an unreachablely far away foreign place, has already become my new hometown.
