Pork and chive dumplings

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Try your hand at these delicious pork and chive dumplings for your Chinese New Year celebrations. Experiment with ingredients and dipping sauces as you please to create a wonderful dim sum masterpiece.

First published in 2015

Chinese food is an absolute favourite in our household and truth be told, we can have it every other day without any complaint. That said, I hardly ever make Chinese food at home, not because it's difficult, but because it's a taste I struggle to recreate at home. Except for dumplings, which I absolutely love experimenting with.

You can fill them with anything you want and what's even better is that you can freeze them until that dumpling craving hits you.

Making dumplings these days is so achievable with all the different types of wrappers available in the market. I have tried both the frozen wrappers as well as the ones listed below, and I've realised that there's not much of a difference. So if you do get put off by that extra step, by all means go for the store-bought wrappers. They work just fine.

I have also experimented with various fillings, and although the pork and chive filling is my favourite, the prawn filling is a close second. A vegetarian filling would also taste fab.

The dipping sauce is also quite versatile. My husband loves to dip the dumplings in some soy sauce, whereas I prefer a bit of the chilli kick. If you do have chilli oil, use that instead of the sesame oil and omit the chilli sauce. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Wrapper

  • 300g of plain flour
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 222ml of boiling water

Filling

To cook

  • 1 tbsp of oil
  • 100ml of water

Dipping sauce

  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp of soy sauce
  • 1 tsp tomato chilli sauce

Method

1
Mix together the flour, salt and boiling water in a mixing bowl using a fork or a wooden ladle. Mix until the dough comes together into a ball
2
Transfer the dough onto the kitchen counter and knead until smooth. Keep aside for half an hour
3
Into another bowl add the minced pork followed by all the ingredients until the sesame oil. Stir together until all the liquid is absorbed and it all starts binding together
4
Throw in the bok choy, chives, ginger and garlic and mix till well combined. Keep aside while you roll out the wrapper
5
Divide the dough into 2 halves, divide each half into 16 small pieces. Try and keep each piece as even as possible to get dumpling of the same size
6
Lightly flour your work surface, and roll out each of the dough slices into a thin disc, around 8 to 9 cm in diameter. If you are one of those, like me, who can't get a round shape, then just divide the dough into 4 and roll it out into bigger rounds and then using a lid or ramekin cut out smaller rounds. This way you ensure the same size
7
When ready to cook, place a heaped teaspoon of filling into the centre of the wrapper and fold to stick the corners. You can go a bit fancy and do pleats by pinching the edges together for that authentic look, but really it's not required. Just make sure you don't get any filling on the edges and pinch them firmly as you don't want them to open up while cooking
8
You can freeze the dumplings in a freezer bag at this point and continue with the next step when ready to cook
9
Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the dumplings, flat side down for about 2 to 3 minutes, in batches of 10 to 12 depending on the size of the saucepan of course. They can be snugly fit in the saucepan, so fit in as many as possible
10
Once golden on the bottom, turn the dumplings over, add the water and immediately cover with a lid. Let the dumplings cook in the steam for about 10 minutes. If in between you notice that all the water has evaporated, then add a little more (not too much though)
11
After about 10 minutes and all the water has evaporated, open the lid and continue cooking for about a minute after which you can carefully lift them off the pan and serve with the sauce. Repeat with the remaining dumplings
12
Make the dipping sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients in a bowl
First published in 2015

Nisha is a freelance writer, avid food blogger and wannabe food photographer.

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