[Recipe] Juicy Fried Dumplings and Dipping Sauce
Adapted from another one of the discovered trove of Chinese recipes, I kind of threw this one together from a couple of different sources. I tinkered with some of the quantities on the ingredients, because parts of it seemed far out of proportion to what else was up there. Nonetheless, I ended up with a surprisingly tasty result -- pleasantly comparable, I must argue, to the kinds of Chinese dumplings (potstickers, specifically) I've eaten in restaurants or bought in frozen packs at the market.
Juicy Fried Dumplings
Ingredients:
1. Flour a cutting board or other flat surface that you intend to roll out the dough on. (You definitely want to do this first, while your hands are still dry and not gloppy with freshly mixed dough.) Keep flour available for further flouring of the board or rolling pin later.
2. Mix the pork with the soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, salt, sugar, and green onions. Stir in one direction until it becomes a paste. Stir in the sesame oil and mix well.
3. In a large bowl, add 1 1/4 cups hot water gradually to 2 1/2 cups flour and mix into a dough. Let rest. Turn out onto a floured board and knead until firm and elastic.
4. Knead the dough again divide into three approximately equal portions. For each portion, in turn, roll each portion into a cylinder, approximately 9" long and 1" thick, then cut into 10 pieces about 1/2" to 3/4" long. In turn, roll each piece up into a ball before flattening each lightly with your hand, then roll out each piece into a 3-inch circle, rotating the dough while rolling so the center is slightly thicker than the edges. Place about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of filling on each circle and pinch the edges together, folding the ends in towards the center of the dumpling.
5. In a wok or non-stick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil until very hot. Place 10 dumplings in a single layer in the wok or skillet, then fry for 2 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.
6. Add 1/2 cup water to wok or skillet, and cover. Cook for 6 to 7 minutes or until almost all of water is absorbed. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with the remaining dumplings.
Makes around 30 potstickers.
Hoisin Dipping Sauce
Ingredients:
Combine all the ingredients and stir thoroughly.
Overall, I was very pleased with the way these came out. For cooking the potstickers, I do recommend edging towards a 7-minute cook time rather than 6 minutes -- it makes them a bit crisper without being overcooked. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Originally crossposted from http://kitchenklutz.dreamwidth.org/11463.html. Please comment here if you first read the post here.
Juicy Fried Dumplings
Ingredients:
- Dumpling Dough
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted (the original recipe called for 4 1/2 cups (!!!), but I figured at a glance that that would produce far too much extremely dry and flaky dough)
* Note: keep the flour out, you'll need it for flouring the board, the rolling pin, and your hands. - 1 1/4 cups very hot water
Dumpling Filling - 1 - 1 1/4 lb. lean boneless pork, minced or ground
- 4 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon rice wine (I recommend Shao Xing rice wine)
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, chopped or ground (in my experience, ginger's a pain in the ass to peel, so I always use bottled ground ginger bought from Spice World; it's still moist, not a dry powder)
- 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 4 oz. (1/4 cup) sesame oil
- 2 green onions (scallions), finely chopped, both white and green parts
Stir-Fry Miscellanea - vegetable oil for frying
- fresh water for steaming
1. Flour a cutting board or other flat surface that you intend to roll out the dough on. (You definitely want to do this first, while your hands are still dry and not gloppy with freshly mixed dough.) Keep flour available for further flouring of the board or rolling pin later.
2. Mix the pork with the soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, salt, sugar, and green onions. Stir in one direction until it becomes a paste. Stir in the sesame oil and mix well.
3. In a large bowl, add 1 1/4 cups hot water gradually to 2 1/2 cups flour and mix into a dough. Let rest. Turn out onto a floured board and knead until firm and elastic.
4. Knead the dough again divide into three approximately equal portions. For each portion, in turn, roll each portion into a cylinder, approximately 9" long and 1" thick, then cut into 10 pieces about 1/2" to 3/4" long. In turn, roll each piece up into a ball before flattening each lightly with your hand, then roll out each piece into a 3-inch circle, rotating the dough while rolling so the center is slightly thicker than the edges. Place about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of filling on each circle and pinch the edges together, folding the ends in towards the center of the dumpling.
5. In a wok or non-stick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil until very hot. Place 10 dumplings in a single layer in the wok or skillet, then fry for 2 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.
6. Add 1/2 cup water to wok or skillet, and cover. Cook for 6 to 7 minutes or until almost all of water is absorbed. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with the remaining dumplings.
Makes around 30 potstickers.
Hoisin Dipping Sauce
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon rice vinegar
- up to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or Chinese ground red pepper
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup peanuts, crushed
Combine all the ingredients and stir thoroughly.
Overall, I was very pleased with the way these came out. For cooking the potstickers, I do recommend edging towards a 7-minute cook time rather than 6 minutes -- it makes them a bit crisper without being overcooked. Your mileage may vary, of course.
Originally crossposted from http://kitchenklutz.dreamwidth.org/11463.html. Please comment here if you first read the post here.