There is nothing more comforting than a big plate of steamy dumplings with your favourite filling. Dumplings are time consuming with many steps but the end product is always worth it. This post contains recipes and instructions from various chefs and blogs amalgamated into one post. If you follow this carefully you will end up with a tasty meal on your hands. Don’t be intimidated by the number of steps, it is simpler than it looks. There are lots of links and videos to help along the way if need be. Happy folding and happy eating!
Homemade Chinese Dumplings
Ingredients
Filling
- For Pork Filling – 30 dumpligs
- 200 g minced pork
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp scallions or green onions finely chopped
- 1 tsp minced ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground Sichuan pepper or Chinese five-spice powder
- 1 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp sesame oil
- 5 tbsp water / stock
- 300 g celery finely chopped, 10oz
- 2 tbsp coriander finely chopped
Wrapper – 30 dumpling wrappers
- Store bought wrappers OR make wrappers from scratch as in photos
- 210 g all-purpose flour unsifted, ~1.5 cups + more for dusting
- 105 ml to 110 ml water room temperature or just boiled hot water*
- 1/4 tsp. salt 1g
- *Cooler water to make dumpling wrappers for water boiled dumplings. If you want to make steamed dumplings or pot stickers you can use just boiled hot water
Instructions
For Pork Dumpling Filling
- Place pork in a mixing bowl. Add scallions/green onions, ginger, 1/4 teaspoon salt, Sichuan pepper / five-spice, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil.
- Gradually add water to the meat while swirling in one direction until no more liquid can be seen.
- Add the remaining salt to the celery then leave to rest for 10 minutes. Squeeze out excess liquid then add to the meat. Mix well with coriander.
Wrapper
- Mix a small pinch of salt with flour, dig a hole in centre and then stir the water in. Mix the flour with water with chop-stickers during the process so you can adjust the water amount if necessary. Then knead the dough for 8-10 minutes with a stand mixer or by hand until the dough is almost smooth. Cover and rest for 15 minutes. Then re-knead the dough for 2-3 minutes so we can get a very smooth dough. Cover and continue resting for 1 hour.
- Dig a small hole in the centre of the ball. Shape it to a large circle round. Cut so you will end up a long log.
- Shape the log around 3cm in diameter. Divide the long log into small dumpling dough pieces (each around 10g). Dust each of them so they will not stick together.
- Before rolling out your dumpling wrappers, dust your working surface again. Take one piece of dough and press it to a round disc. Rotate the wrapper when moving your rolling pin. Repeat the process, rotate the wrapper-roll and rotate the wrapper-roll. The wrappers will have thicker centre and thinner edges naturally. You can refer to this video for the process.
- This process might be quite difficult at the very beginning. Just keep trying. You will end up with perfect homemade dumpling wrappers.
- Dust with flour to prevent sticking, stack and cover with moist paper towel until ready to use.
To make dumplings
- Scoop about 1 tablespoon (or less, so you can easily fold the dumpling) of dumpling filling and place it in the centre of the wrapper. Hold the dumpling with one hand and start sealing the edges with the other hand. Be careful, when you press the edges together to seal the dumpling, do not let filling touch the sealing area (the dumpling will fall apart if you do). After folding, press edge again to seal well. You don’t need to fold beautiful dumplings here; our goal is to make the dumplings hold their shape during cooking. If you do want to see a few more ways to fold dumplings refer to this video.
- Place the dumplings on the working surface and work on the rest of the doughs in the same manner. Cover dumplings until ready to cook.
- Try to wrap and cook dumplings in small batches (20 to 25 dumplings at a time). If you won’t cook dumplings soon after wrapping (within 30 minutes), freeze them first. If you want to know the reason, read the session of “Things you should take note of” above.
For boiled dumplings
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
- Carefully add dumplings one at a time into the water. Use a big ladle to stir the water gently and continuously, until the water starts to boil again, so the dumplings won’t stick to the bottom, for about 1 minute. Adjust the heat so the water is at boiling point, but isn’t bubbling too fiercely.
- When the dumplings float to the surface, continue boiling until the dumplings are filled with air and swollen, and the dough starts to become transparent, about 1 minute. Immediately transfer all the dumplings to a plate.
- Be careful, the dumplings cook quickly and you should always stand beside the pot throughout the boiling process. When the dumplings are cooked, they will start to fall apart within seconds, so transfer them as soon as possible.
To cook potstickers
- Heat a tablespoon of oil in a nonstick skillet over medium high heat. When oil is hot, place potstickers in the skillet, pleat side up.
- Swirl 2 tablespoons water in the skillet, cover immediately, and turn the heat to medium. Cook covered until the water is evaporated and potstickers are cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Remove the cover and flip one potsticker to see whether the bottom side is charred. If not, turn to medium high heat and cook until the bottom side turns golden brown.
- Transfer the potstickers to a plate.
To serve dumplings
- Option 1: Serve with Chinese black vinegar and a few ginger slices.
- Option 2: Serve with 1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar + 1 teaspoon light soy sauce + 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil.
