The Spring Festival or Chinese New Year is when the Lunar Year begins. Therefore, its date changes year after year. In 2020 it’s from January 24th to the 30th. Thus, this is the perfect time of the year to prepare a batch of everyone’s Chinese favorites: Dumplings. Today’s recipe is with a pork stuffing, however, you can always prepare them with veggies or any other animal protein. I’ve seen pork, beef, chicken, lamb… anything, even fish and shellfish.
Truly we all refer to them as ‘dumplings’, but in English they could be named ‘Chinese turnovers’, and I even saw them be compared to them as well. They are an everyday staple Chinese food and we can see them in different forms. Mine always look like turnovers, but I feel I should practice their round version. After all, the difference lies only in the way one closes them, since the forcemeat can be the same.
Today I used the wrappers sold at the grocery store raw, since even though I have a recipe at hand that seems to be quite simple, I haven’t tested it. According to the instructions, one must combine water, one egg and two cups of all-purpose flour. Once kneaded it should rest for 30 minutes, to then dust with cornstarch and flatten with the pasta machine. Lastly, one must cut out circles of a diameter of about 10 cm. I think it is about 1.5 inches. Anyhow, should you want to test it, I leave it here, try it. It seems to be easy enough.
I hope you like them just like we do at home. Also, may the Year of the Rat bring health and fortune to all.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 12 dumpling wrappers
- 200 g (7 oz) pork, ground
- 10 g (1 tbsp) ginger, minced
- 100 g (1 cups) green cabbage, minced
- 50 g (3 tbsp) chives, minced
- 1 (1) carrot, finely diced
- 1 clove (1 clove) garlic , minced
- 1 (1) egg white
- 60 ml (¼ cups) soy sauce
- Dash (Dash) Sherry, amontillado
- Salt and pepper, to season
To Prepare
- Mix all ingredients in a bowl and incorporate.
- Take one teaspoon of the forcemeat and sauté. Verify seasoning should you consider it necessary. This is just to be able to taste, so don't sauté all of the forcemeat; just that little bite.
- Assemble the dumplings with the raw forcemeat. In order to accomplish, take one of the wrappers and place it on your working surface. To the center, add a teaspoon stuffing at the most, since you don't want them to explode when they get cooked. With a pastry brush or just using your finger, smear a little water on the edge of the wrapper using it as a kind of glue. I do it with the tip of my finger. I feel it's much easier. Close the turnovers by creasing the edge. A second option is to simply press down and curl it like a flounce.
- As you assemble your dumplings, be sure to put them in a baking sheet or a dish and cover them. You don’t want them to dry out; it will crack the dough. As soon as you have all of your dumplings you can cook them either in the steaming basket or by frying them in a skillet with a lid.
- If you choose the steaming option, line the bamboo basket with a couple cabbage leaves, place them with the seam facing upwards, and cook them for approximately 8 minutes.
- If you’d rather fry them, I use a skillet with peanut oil. Heat it up and fry the first side to golden brown, turn them around and color the second side. When both sides look more or less the same, add 2 to 3 tablespoons fresh water to your frying pan and cover immediately. Let the water evaporate and turn the fire off.
- The dumplings are ready to be served. On the side, you can serve a dipping sauce of your preference with a soy sauce base with rice vinegar or mirin. At home we only put soy sauce with a bit of lime juice and sometimes a little minced chili like serrano or árbol.
