Handmade Dumplings
Dumplings are one of the very delicious staple foods. Filling and easy to season to your own taste, suitable for students in the US who can’t easily get boiled dumplings and want to satisfy a craving. Generally beginners need 3 hours to complete, and the difficulty is relatively high.
Ingredients and Tools
- Rolling pin
- Flour
- Cold water
- A bowl with diameter 30cm or larger
- Sesame oil
Measurements
- Flour 200g
- Cold water 150ml
- Sesame oil 2-3ml
- Lean minced pork 250g
- Fatty minced pork 20g, can omit if you don’t like
- Ginger 3g
- Scallion 15g
- Salt 3g
- Oyster sauce 2ml
- Sesame oil 2ml
- Light soy sauce 2ml
- Egg 1
Steps
- Add all the flour to the bowl
- Add sesame oil
- Make a small hole in the center of the flour
- Add water in 4-5 batches and mix; when it becomes a slightly dry crumbly dough
- Stop adding water, use your hand to press the dough together
- Press the dough until it can incorporate the flour around the bowl; this step is smooth dough and clean bowl
- Place the dough on the table, invert the bowl over it, ambient temperature 25 degrees, let the dough rest about 45 minutes
- After resting, roll the dough into a strip, gather into a ball, roll into a strip again, repeat 3 times
- Roll into a strip, cut into 20 equal pieces, and roll into balls about 3-3.5cm in diameter
- Flatten the dough; sprinkle flour on your hand, the table, the rolling pin, and the dough to prevent sticking
- Use the rolling pin to roll the dough flat, about 8cm in diameter, about 2mm thick, with the center about 1mm thicker than the edges to hold the filling
- Remove the skin from the pork, keep some fatty meat, cut into small pieces
- Use a cleaver (recommended two) to chop the pork into mince, put into a bowl
- Chop scallion and ginger into mince, add to the meat bowl and mix evenly
- Wash chives, cut short to length under 3mm
- Mix chives and minced meat; add oyster sauce, light soy sauce, sesame oil 2ml each; add the egg white from one egg; mix evenly by hand
- Let sit for 30 minutes, then you can start wrapping dumplings Wrap dumplings
- Place the wrapper on the left hand, place filling on it; try not to get flour on the filling side to prevent it from sealing
- Use the right hand and chopsticks to pick up filling about 1/2 the wrapper diameter
- Seal along the circumference of the wrapper and pinch tight; for personal eating no need to pleat, as long as it doesn’t leak Boil dumplings
- Use a pot that can hold 20 dumplings, or boil in batches
- Boil water to about 3/4 of the pot height
- Bring to a boil on high heat, add dumplings, reduce to medium heat
- When dumplings are added and the water is bubbling, add 50ml cold water along the edge of the pot (repeat this step twice)
- After the third boil, add 50ml cold water, when it boils again reduce to low heat and wait 60s, then remove
Notes
- You don’t need to cover the pot when boiling dumplings; adding water three times is to prevent the dumplings from staying at a rolling boil and the skin breaking into wrappers. This dish has some additional methods, including but not limited to: Add the following extra ingredients:
- Black vinegar 10ml
- Ginger a small piece 50 grams
- Sesame oil 2 drops
- Garlic/garlic paste 3 cloves/person
- Consider eating with black vinegar. Suggested amount: 10-20ml.
- Consider cutting ginger into shreds, add 20ml black vinegar and ginger shreds in a small bowl and mix as dipping sauce for richer flavor.
- Consider adding 1~3 drops of sesame oil when pairing with black vinegar, mix as dipping sauce.
- Consider adding crushed garlic paste when pairing with black vinegar, mix as dipping sauce. (Garlic smell will remain in the mouth; if you need to talk face-to-face with others after a meal, it is recommended to skip it or clean the mouth) If you follow the process in this guide and find issues or processes that can be improved, please submit an Issue or Pull request.