Making Chinese dumplings

As a very not-in-line-with-tradition tradition we decided to make Chinese style dumplings to celebrate. The menu featured pork mince with cabbage and egg with Chinese leek dumplings.

Do try this at home!

For those who want to try this out at home, read on.

For the dumpling skins

• a kilo of flour
• 2 eggs
• warm water
• an hour of rest time for the dough

Beat the dough

For the egg and Chinese leek filling

• 6 eggs
• 300g Chinese leek aka 韭菜, a well-stocked Asia shop should have it
• 20g sesame oil
• salt to taste

Pork mince with cabbage filling

For the pork mince and cabbage filling

• half kilo pork mince (you can also use beef, mutton, shrimp or chicken)
• 50g soy sauce
• 100 g vegetable oil
• 20g sesame oil
• 50g ginger
• 100g leek
• 250g cabbage
• salt to taste

Prepare the dough for the dumpling skins first. For this, crack two eggs into a bowl, stir them up good and add the flour and water slowly. In the end, it should have the consistency of normal dough, slightly wet. Leave it to rest for an hour.

Now the veggies: Clean the vegetables under running water thoroughly and then chop into small pieces. By small, we mean really small, the average size per piece should be no more than a quarter of an inch.

Egg and Chinese leek

First fry up the egg as you would do for your favorite breakfast scrambled eggs. Stir well, so that you are left with many smallish pieces. Place in a medium sized bowl. Prepare the Chinese leek next. Chop up well, then add to your egg. Add the sesame oil and some salt to taste. Finished.

Pork mince and cabbage

Put the raw pork mince in another medium sized bowl, add the oils, soy sauce and finely chopped ginger and leek. Stir well. Add the Chinese cabbage and salt to taste.

Making the dumplings

Making the dumplings is an art form in itself. Take the prepared dough and make a stick about 5 inches long and one inch in diameter. Cut pieces from it at about half an inch. Throw some flour over it so that they don’t stick and press down on them to make them round. Use a piece of wood as pictured to make small dough plates, about 2 inches in diameter. For this you take one of your dough pieces and start rolling over it while turning the dough.

Getting the dough right

Take the dough plate in your hand, add filling in its middle and start closing the dumpling from one side by pressing the ends together.

Filling it with the good stuff

Boil a few first and see if the filling is salty enough. The dumplings need to be boiled for 10 minutes for the egg filling ones and 15 minutes for the pork filling.

Dumplings ready to be cooked and delicious

If you want to be really traditional, you get a bottle of Chinese vinegar (Asia shop) and for the very hardcore fans some raw garlic to eat with the dumplings.

The best part: if you have some left over just fry them in a pan with a little oil the next day to get 锅贴.

Enjoy!