This recipe was a bucket list recipe for me. Chinese dumplings are one of my most favourite things to eat, flavour packed little pockets of deliciousness dipped in an amazing sauce. They were not near as hard as I was anticipating!
There are several steps to making dumplings but they aren't very time consuming and you can do steps in-between other steps to help save time. For example your filling needs to marinate for 1-2 hours in that time you can easily make your dough, rest it and shape out your dumpling wrappers. Doing this helps so that all of your ingredients are ready for shaping dumplings at the same time.
Dumpling dough is two simple ingredients, flour and water! Mixing it together using two chop sticks and then your hands is quick and easy, this was probably one of the most stress free doughs I have made to date. The dough needs to rest for about 30 minutes before it is ready to roll out. When rolling out each little dumpling wrapper flour is your best friend, this dough can be a little sticky or soft so making sure each wrapper is floured well prevents your dough from sticking together.
When cooking dumplings there are three primary methods; boiling, steaming and pan frying. For this recipe I decided to pan fry the dumplings to get a nice crispy bottom and then add some water to the pan and steam them until cooking is finished.
Chinese Pork Dumplings
Ingredients:
For dough
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 very warm water
For pork filling
- 1 lb ground pork
- 1/2 cup green onion, slice finely
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3/4 cup Napa cabbage, chopped finely.
Instructions:
For pork filling
Combine ground pork, green onion, garlic, ginger, egg, soy sauce, sesame oil, five spice, sea salt and vegetable oil in a bowl and mix until pork is well mixed together. Using potato masher mash filing until ground pork looks creamy/smooth.Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge to marinate for 1-2 hours
Once filling has marinated mix in Napa cabbage. Filing is ready!
For dough
In a large bowl combine flour and water, using chop sticks or a wooden spoon stir until water in fully incorporated and dough is shaggy.
Using your hands, gather the dough together and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough for about 2-3 minutes, the dough may feel tacky but it shouldn't feel sticky.
After kneading place your dough ball into a bowl and cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30-45 minutes.
Take dough out of the bowl once it has rested, knead a couple times and then make a hole in the middle of the dough ball. Using the hole as a centre, stretch out he dough into a larger ring, continue to stretch until you get a large ring (pictures above show steps)
Cut the dough with a knife, roll out the dough rope until it is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Next cut the dough rope in half, and again cut each half in half. Repeat this step until you have about 32 pieces.
Next comes the rolling step, while rolling out each piece of dough place the rest back in the bowl and cover with the damp towel to prevent them from drying out. Shape the dough piece into a circle, flatten with your palm and then using a rolling pin roll 1/3 way into the centre of the dough and rotate. Continuing this step until you have a thin, round dumpling wrapper. This rolling out method helps keep the inside of the dumpling wrapper slightly thicker than the edges. Dust each side of the wrapper with flour to prevent the dough from sticking together, place rolled out dough on a plate until a towel so they don't dry out.
Once all wrappers are rolled out you are ready to make your dumplings.
To make dumplings
With dumpling wrapper placed flat in your palm, place 1 tablespoon of filling into centre of wrapper. Bring edges together and pinch, start in the middle and then work from the inside out, being careful not to let the filling spill out the edges.
Add a couple pleats to the pinched edges of each dumpling.
In a large pan heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil on medium heat. Place dumplings about 1 cm apart, cover with lid and cook for 3 minutes until bottom of dumplings are nice and brown. Pour 1/2 cup of water into pan and cover for 7-9 minutes and let steam.
While dumplings are cooking warm vegetable broth in a pot with green onions and a garlic clove. This broth mixture is used as a base for the dumplings, place dumplings in broth and sprinkle with black sesame seeds and green onion and serve!
****When it comes to making sauces or recipes in general my old method of cooking was adding ingredients in and basically winging it for the amounts. For the sauce I made for this recipe I used four main ingredients; oyster sauce, sesame oil, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. I would say use; 1 tablespoon oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1/2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil.
There you have it, bucket list recipe made! Something full of flavour and honestly fun to learn how to make.
Enjoy!
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