Pork (or Beef) Dumplings

You may know these as Potstickers. I know them as scrumdiddlyumptious.

Ah, dumplings. One of my favourite comfort foods to eat and to make. Also known as ‘Gauu Ji’ (Cantonese), ‘Jiao Zi’ (Mandarin), ‘Gyoza’ (Japanese) or ‘Mandu’ (Korean). Traditionally, these delicious little flour wrappings are filled with meat, but when you’re making your own, you can put whatever you please in it. I will also be sharing my vegetarian version of dumplings for those interested! 🙂

Please note that I’m just sharing my recipes (i.e. dumpling filling), and they won’t include instructions on how to wrap dumplings – I’d just be repeating what has been mention by many other people. However, I’ve got links aplenty for those who are attempting to make dumplings for the first time down below 🙂

I moved to London from Australia about a month ago, and making familiar favourite food has been a way for me to fend off homesickness. I’ve just moved into a place that doesn’t have any of your typical baking utensils, so baking something like a cake or even muffins is not really an option for me at the moment 😦 However, I love cooking as well, so I thought why not share something other than baking for now?

First batch of pork dumplings ready to be frozen and consumed later!

One of my aunts taught me how to wrap dumplings and wontons a long time ago. I’ve even make my own wrappers from time to time, but store bought wrappers are more convenient. A huge part of Chinese cuisine is getting used to eyeballing because very rarely will a recipe with exact measurements be written down. However, when my aunt saw that I was genuinely interested in making them look uniform and pretty, she got me a dumpling spatula. I love this simple but effective utensil – every scoop is the same.

My pan-fried recipe actually comes from my pal Alex. The dumplings mum and I primarily made before I asked Alex for his recipe were ones more suited to boiling; they were Hong Kong-style wonton soup ones. Alex invited me and a bunch of colleagues over to his house to celebrate Chinese New Year one year. To get an invite to one of his dumpling and game nights now is a big deal because you know you’re going to be eating some hella yum dumplings and spots are strictly limited – he’s since expanded his repertoire to not just meat and vegetarian dumplings, but also vegan dumplings!

This video from RecipeTin Eats is a great demonstration in how to wrap potstickers. The main aim of this wrapping is so then your dumpling will be able to sit in the pan, to get that nice crispy base (jump to 39 seconds to see the wrapping):

Credit: RecipeTin Eats@YT

As you can see from my wrapping, I got lazy, with my dumplings having less pleats that fold into the centre, but there is no wrong and right way to fold dumplings. Just as long as you are able to seal your filling in, you’re good! At many fast-serving dumpling places, you’ll actually find that they won’t pleat their dumplings – they’ll just seal up the wrapper the quickest way possible:

Credit: Red House Spice

Wei from Red House Spice goes into fantastic detail about the difference between homemade dumpling skin and store-bought dumpling skin and the different ways you can wrap your dumplings. Dumplings are a great thing to make in large batches. They freeze really well and don’t need to be defrosted when you want to eat them. Just make sure you give the dumplings time to freeze completely before putting them in a ziplock bag in the freezer.

Notes on the recipe:

• The filling amount listed makes a large batch of dumplings. If you choose to use (or make) thick dumpling skins, then buy approximately 1kg (yes, 1 kg) of skin. If you choose to use thin skins, then 500g should be enough.
• This recipe is traditional and therefore requires for asian sauces: oyster sauce, soy sauce, shaoxing cooking wine and sesame oil. You should be able to find these at all good asian grocery stores 🙂
• I prefer to use Chinese cabbage and put lots of it in to balance out how much meat the filling has, but celery works just as well.
• For maximum flavour, let your filling sit overnight in the fridge.
• My picture below is actually a beef filling – I was trying to use up beef I had. Pork is the preferred meat for the filling. I personally find beef doesn’t taste quite the same (and my beef batch reinforced that) and it doesn’t work as well. But each to their own!

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Pork pan-fried dumplings

INGREDIENTS

• 500g minced pork (or beef)
• 3 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp cooking wine
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• approximately 1.5 tbsp ground white pepper
• 2 whole spring onions, finely chopped
• 1.5 tbsp shredded ginger
• sesame oil
• 1 cup of roughly chopped washed Chinese cabbage or 2 sticks of celery
• 1 egg

METHOD

1. Put all the ingredients into one big bowl. Mix in one direction until well combined.
2. Crack the egg into the mixture and combine well.
3. Add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of water in three stages. Make sure the water is incorporated before adding in more water. If the mixture is already watery (especially if using Chinese cabbage) then reduce the amount of water used.
4. Let the mixture marinate for three hours, but preferably overnight.
5. Heat your pan on medium heat before adding in oil. Let the oil heat up before arranging the dumplings. Fry the dumplings for approximately three minutes or until bottoms are golden brown, before turning heat to high and adding in 1/3 cup (approx. 60ml) of water and quickly replacing the lid, allowing the dumplings to steam until the water has largely evaporated.
6. Remove the lid and let dumplings cook for a little longer so the bottoms become crispy again.

Enjoy!