I made these for Chinese New Year this year. They’re super fun (just don’t make with other more intricate shapes like me at the same time and take all day shaping and packing them). Dumplings look hard but are actually pretty easy and fun once you get used to it and is a fun group activity.
Skin (around 30 wrappers):
- 250g all purpose flour. Any is fine, but you should go for medium gluten (around 10g protein per 100g flour) for a nice and springy skin, but if you are new to dumpling wrapping and are nervous, you can go for a higher level of gluten as that would make the dough more resilient.
- 125g water. This depends on factors like how much protein there is (the more protein, the more water you might need), and the humidity of your place (I need to reduce usually as it’s super humid here). Over time you can tell but 2:1 ratio is a good place to start.
- Colouring: I used spirulina powder and turmeric to mix into green cos that was what I had. You can boil spinach for the water, but you would have to split the flour into one third for the green dough and knead separately from the white part as you need to factor in the green water as water weight. You can also use spinach powder or green food colouring.
- Around 250g of the base meat/veggie is a good place to start but it depends on how much you stuff into a dumpling (I stuff mine really fat so I need more). You can use almost anything for filling. For meat minces, use fatty meat for juicier fillings, and mix beef with pork if you can at a 80% beef to 20% pork ratio for flavour and fat balance. If using chicken mince, you can add sesame oil into the mince to make up for the fat and juiciness. For vegetarians, you can try minced mushrooms, carrots and panko (and egg as a binder if you can eat those if not add some starch) and chives. You can also mix those veggies into the meats as well. Chives, shrimp and water chestnut are also great combinations. Season with salt, pepper, msg, shaoxing wine, spices, chilli, cooked onion/garlic, be creative.
1. Mix the flour with water gradually and mix with chopsticks/fork until there is no loose flour. Knead with your hand for a while and leave it to rest for 10-15 minutes, covering the bowl with a wet cloth or cling wrap. Come back and knead some more until it becomes a smooth ball. Do not panic and refrain from adding more flour if it seems too wet and sticky, as it will gradually become less so after some time kneading. Only add flour if it seems like it’s still too wet after some time. Cover and rest the dough again for 30-60 minutes until soft.
2. Flour the surface and roll the dough into a stick shape and cut one third of the dough and mix spirulina+turmeric powder/spinach powder/green colouring into it for the green dough. Roll out the green dough into a flat length and wrap it around the white dough, like in the dough indicated with the arrow in the image below (I made separate green and pink (using beetroot powder) doughs for different shaped dumplings.
3. Keeping the surface well floured, slice the dough into thin discs and using a rolling pin, roll them as thinly as possible. The beauty of this is that because they are cabbage shaped, they don’t have to be perfectly round, which makes them even more beginner friendly. Focus on making them as thin as you can, as the thinner the skin is the more delicious. Place a sphere of the filling in the center. Try to be generous, but with enough room for the dough to wrap around it. The skin can stretch when wrapping, but if unsure, make sure to have just enough skin to touch the top.
4. As they are cabbages, you don’t need perfect pleats. Just pinch the pleats together by folding and pinching the edge, then folding the nearest part on top and pinching, and repeat until the end. After that you can shape it some more to look more cabbagey. This may take some time unless you make it a group activity, but it’s repetitive so I was just watching stuff while folding.
5. They can then be frozen until ready for cooking. Place them on a tray/large container with baking paper underneath, making sure they are not touching each other, and freeze for a couple of hours before you can transfer them into a glad bag/container. Make sure they are frozen hard enough so they retain their shapes even if you keep them touching each other in a bag.
6. You can steam them or pan fry them, but for the colour I would recommend steaming them. You can use any steamer. I used a bamboo steaming basket, which you place into a wok/pot with boiling water ready. Fresh dumplings steam for around 8-10 minutes, and frozen around 15-20 minutes, depending on the size. For pan frying, heat oil to medium high, and drop dumplings in to sear for around 3-4 minutes. Then add about enough water to cover the dumplings halfway, and cover with a lid and steam until all the water has evaporated.
Recommend dips would be black vinegar with thinly sliced ginger, and/or chilli oil (with fried garlic in the chilli oil if possible).
I’ll do the other dumpling shapes another time. Those need some drawing to show how to fold them. BotW recipes will come in time, but I definitely need to draw those.
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