My love for dumplings is eternal. I can eat them any time of the day (or night), 7 days a week. My only problem is - I no longer live in Hong Kong and can therefore no longer make the 10 minute walk into Kennedy Town and pop into my favourite dumpling place for a platter of Jiaozi. Determined to create something better than the frozen dumplings from my local A-mart which left me decidedly underwhelmed, I dug up this recipe on The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook - and with the help of the incredible Leopotamus made a truckload of awesomeness. This is my slightly modified version of Ellen Chou's recipe; I used zucchini instead of cabbage and added some mushrooms. Also, for the sake of variety, we ended up boiling one portion and frying the other, leaving us with two versions of dumplings, both absolutely delicious. I'm hungry now!Two Way Dumplings
(serves 4)
for the dough:
- two cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 to 1 cuo lukewarm water
for the filling:
- 500g pork mince
- 1 large zucchini
- 5 medium sized mushrooms (I used champigons)
- 5 slim stalks green onion, finely chopped
- 1 heaped teaspoon finely grated ginger
- 2 tablespoons soysauce
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
For instructions on how to actually make the dumplings, I shall send you back over to The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook. I don't have any step-by-step pictures of our dumpling-making session, plus my folding technique, is sufficient enough to keep the filling contained within the wrappers, clearly gives away that I was not born to Chinese parents. All I will say is make sure you really seal the edges of the dumpling wrappers, or your filling will pop out when you boil the dumplings. Get cooking! These are the business.
