Food & Wine
Pork and vegetable dumplings
Steamed dumplings are absolutely moreish, and can have any filling you fancy. The best part, however, is that they are so easy to make.
Ingredients:
- 1kg green leafy vegetables of your choice
- 750g ground pork* (or ground chicken or beef, not too lean)
- 1 tablespoon minced ginger
- 1 spring onion stem, finely chopped
- 150ml shaoxing wine
- 100ml oil (canola or vegetable)
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 3/4 tablespoon of salt
- 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- 3-4 packs of dumpling wrappers (available at supermarkets)
- 2 tablespoons of cornflour
* Pork mince from the shoulder is the best as it has a decent amount of fat, which makes the moist dumplings. If it is too lean, the poor little things will be too dry and lifeless. Live a little.
Method:
- The vegetables need to be blanched (except garlic chives, if using). Drop vegetables into boiling water and remove after 1 minute, put into ice-cold water to cool. Remove from the water and wrap them in cheesecloth, twisting and wringing out the water. Be ruthless.
- Chop the vegetables into small chunks, about 0.5-1cm or so.
- Combine the vegetables and pork mince. You can change the meat to veg ratio to suit your tastes, but Pot Sticker prefers about 60 per cent veg to 40 per cent meat.
- Add the wine, oil, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, pepper, 1/3 cup of water and the corn flour. Mix — a lot. You need to mix it until it almost looks like a paste. About 6-8 minutes spent mixing gives a good consistency.
- Take out your dumpling wrappers. Choose the round white wrappers. Be careful not to leave the bag open too long as the air dries them out. If this happens, wrap them in a damp paper towel and seal in a plastic bag to soften them. Freeze unused wrappers.
- To assemble, get a little bowl of water and wet the edges of the dumpling wrappers, then place a little mound of filling in the middle. Use a butter knife with a round edge to help with accuracy.
- The easiest pinching technique is to fold the wrapper in half and pinch the edges in the middle, then pinch up the sides to make a half moon.
- Steam in a bamboo steamer over water until cooked through and tender.
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First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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