Taste of Home – An Authentic Chinese Dumpling Recipe

Dalian, China. Where I call home. It has been two years since my last visit.

As the plane descends, the lights of the city reflects off the dark surface of the sea. My heart beats faster for the prospect of seeing my parents for the first time in months. Hugs and tears ensue. People in the crowded waiting hall addressed us with puzzled looks. Chinese people are not used to this much emotional outpour. I don’t care.

Driving home, I begin to notice immense changes. The roads are wider and newly paved. An entirely new high-speed railway has been built in the two years of my absence, connecting Dalian to the ever-expanding high-speed transportation axis of China.

            I wake up before dawn due to jet-lag. Damn it. Was going to enjoy the sunrise, but the smog unfortunately covered it. Looking across the sea, I spot entirely new buildings I did not even realize were being built two years ago. Cranes for ship building and the new port built across the bay crowd my skyline.

            This used to be a tranquil view. Mountains and forests in the distance, contrasting sharply with the bright blue-green ocean. The high-rises used to be at the edge of the visible skyline, now they impose on me, even from my sixth floor balcony. The smog scrapes as high as the sky, covering everything in a grey, choking, claustrophobic contour. Home is not like it used to be.

            All this, for what? Economic progress, of course. Chinese people have to eat. They have to pollute their atmosphere and their lungs full of carcinogens, making minimum wage (like $300/month minimum), working day and night, to make toys for fat American kids, or that fifth pair of Nike shoes. All the while, real estate prices continue to sky-rocket, food prices expand, and clothes, made in China, are sold at a higher price in China then after being exported to the US. This is Capitalism.

            Anyways. It’s not all bad, for me at least. It’s all good actually, especially the food. I really missed the food. A simply bowl of congee with poached egg for breakfast. Some Korean BBQ for lunch. Dumplings for dinner. Life is good.    

About dumplings. It’s comfort food. Ask an American, and the answer will usually be mac & cheese or grilled cheese. Ask a Chinese person, and you will probably hear an overwhelming outcry of dumplings.

This is because, for a lot of Chinese people, this simple dish of boiled meat stuffed in dough represents much more than just a delicious food, but cherished memories of home, of comfort, of family. Even though my home has been demolished by the now uber-capitalism totalitarian communist government (figuratively and literally, actually, my childhood home was literally torn down to accommodate an expanded road), my family remains intact. After a long day of breathing in cancer-causing air, suffering the crowded streets and dangerous traffic, bearing the unreasonable prices for food and shelter, at least we can still sit down together, and enjoy a heart-warming, steaming bowl of delicious, succulent dumplings with our loved ones.

Some things just don’t change, like mom’s dumplings. And that’s why its comfort food. Just like I remember.

Ingredients

For the dough

-       White enriched all-purpose flour (DO NOT use brown flour, this will ruin the dumplings, I will hunt you down)

-       Warm water ~ 30°C (about half of that of flour in volume)

Note: Unfortunately, Chinese people don’t measure things usually by cup, but by eye. I say 2 cups of flour will make enough dumplings for 3-4 people.

For the filling

-       Your favorite ground meat ( ~ 1 pound)

o   Suggested are pork and lamb, can also use fish (preferably white, non-oily fish like perch or sole)

o   Pork is most common in China, followed by lamb, chicken (can also use ground turkey)

-       Your favorite soft leafy vegetable (chop, diced, and minced into extremely fine pieces, should be same volume as ground meat)

o   Suggested are chives, Napa cabbage. If using lamb, suggest carrots that have been boiled till soft (my personal favorite)

-       Shrimp (optional, best with pork), diced into rather large pieces

-       Mushrooms (optional, best with chicken or turkey)

-       Ginger

-       Green onion

-       Garlic (optional)

-       VEGETARIAN OPTION

o   Sautee until soft the following, in finely diced form

o   Mushrooms, carrots, hard flavored tofu, black fungus, cabbage, egg (fried first, added last), garlic, ginger, green onion

o   Set aside until cool and proceed as filling

-       Season according to personal taste with salt, pepper, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice/balsamic/”Lao Chen Cu” vinegar (for details on how much, see below).

Procedure

1. Mix the dough. Start with flour in a bowl, add water very slowly, mixing with the other hand. Should mix until all the flour becomes tiny pieces of dough, with very little if no pure dry flour left.

a.    Note all of the dough steps can be skipped if you buy some dumpling skin from the local Asian supermarket, but this will not lead to optimally delicious dumplings. The store bought ones are too evenly thick, too thick in general (bad dough to filling ratio), and also sometimes stale (bad texture) and not chewy enough (no gluten formation from proper kneading). But this will also save you 90% of time. Your choice.

2. Combine and knead the dough. Don’t overdo it, just until it’s combined.
3. Let sit for at least 30 minutes at room temperature for the gluten to form (will add extra doughy texture to the dumplings).
   
4. Meanwhile, combine all the filling. Add seasoning. You will know the filling is at proper level of seasoning when you can smell a salty mouthwatering aroma when putting your nose close to the filling. If you are worried, just fry a bit up and taste it. It should be pretty salty (remember you are filling it in dough).
5. KEY STEP. Add water to the filling while mixing, until the filling reaches almost a soupy consistency. This will make the meat juicy and the filling succulent. Most people don’t do this step and their dumpling ends up tasting quite dry and blend. You’re welcome.
   
6. Now the dough should be ready. Split a piece off about the size of your fist. Knead until smooth.
7. IMPORTANT: use a large flat surface for this, preferably with one person doing the dough and one or more persons making the dumplings.
   
8. Flour the surface. Make the dough rather flat and round. Make a hole in the middle of the dough ball. Start working the dough into a thin bagel like shape, turning the dough while trying to make the dough cylinder thinner and thinner. When the thickness of the dough is about 1.5 fingers in diameter, split the circle into one straight long cylinder.
9. Keep smoothing out the dough with your hand until evenly thick throughout. Cut the dough into bits the size a little larger than your upper dumb, turning the dough cylinder after every cut (this will help keep the shape of the dough pieces consistent, if not, it will be hard to roll out the dough into circles).
10. Flour the pieces extensively, mix until every piece is covered with dry flour. Flatten out the pieces with your palm into a circle with a single press.
11. Roll with a small rolling pin, one hand on the edge of the dough, turning it, while the other rolls into the center of the dough circle with even and gentle pressure throughout. Keeping turning and rolling at the same time until you get a pretty thin circle. Flour the rolling surface extensively so that the dough circle doesn’t stick to the table or the rolling pin, destroying the circle.

a.     This is the hardest part of the whole operation, but needs to be mastered for authentic dumplings. If you cut out dough circles with a cup, the thickness will be too even and when you wrap, you might leak the filling. Make sure you practice or learn from a master. Don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t roll out the dough this way. This is the only proper way of making dumpling skin. If someone tells you to do it another way, they are believers of a false god.

12. As the dumpling skins are rolled out, the other person can start making the dumplings.
13. The dumpling skins should be about the size of the center of your palm.
14. Fill the dumpling skin with about a table spoon of filling. Your should fill as much as possible, being sure to leave enough dough space around the filling so that you can make the dumpling. If the filling touches the dough, it will not stick anymore, and the filling will spill everywhere in the water you boil it in, making bowls of empty skin and dumpling filling soup. (Which is fine too, if you like that kind of thing.) If you are really struggling, you can always fry the dumplings, the leaky filling won’t interfere with this.
15. Wrap the dumpling, Start from one end, start sticking one side of the dough with the other side, until the whole thing is sticking together from the middle, like a half moon. Now your can make crimps in the sticking (only dough) part by folding bits of dough over the top of each other. This will help ensure the dumplings don’t explode while boiling. You can also squeeze the dough part between the sides of your thumb and index finger (this is technically challenging, not recommended for beginners).
16. Put finished dumplings on a non-stick surface (plastic mats, baking plates lined with parchment paper). If the process takes a long time, cover your dumplings with a semi-wet piece of clothe to prevent them from drying out. Do not let dumplings touch each other since they will stick together almost immediately.
17. Boil dumplings.
18. KEY STEP: boil large pot of water. Place enough dumplings into pot until basically the surface area of dumplings is the same as the pot. DO NOT PUT TOO MUCH IN, they will stick together. Best to do in batches. Use a spatula to continuously scrape the bottom to prevent dumplings from sticking to the bottom of the pot. The dumplings will float to the top after about 3-5 minutes. Turn down heat to medium, cover. The water will start to boil over after about 30 seconds to a minute, open the cover at this time. The boil-over will stop. Repeat this twice.
19. Serve with dipping sauce. You can simply combine soy sauce with balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar. You can also put some sriracha or wasabi in it.

Authentic dumpling dipping sauce:

-       Peal garlic bulbs.

-       Using a mortar and pestle, ground the garlic with some salt.

-       Add Chinese vinegar, preferably “Lao Chen Cu” until covering garlic completely.