Daring Cooks, June 2009 – Chinese Dumplings

This month’s Daring Cooks challenge is hosted by Jen of use real butter and she chose her family Chinese dumplings recipe. Yum!

Chinese Dumplings

Filling:

120 g raw shrimp, peeled and coarsely chopped
120 g ground pork
1 half onion
25 g ginger root, minced
50 g ground walnuts
1 tsp salt
1,5 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp corn starch

Combine all filling ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use (up to a day, but preferably within an hour or two).

Dough:

250 g flour
110 ml warm water

In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch.

Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes. Take the dough and form a flattened dome. Cut into strips about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. Shape the strips into rounded long cylinders. On a floured surface, cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle (you can shape the corners in with your fingers). With a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper from each flat disc. Take care not to roll out too thin or the dumplings will break during cooking – about 1/16th inch. Leave the centers slightly thicker than the edges. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough in half, pleating the edges along one side (see images in Jen’s post for how to fold pleats, I used different method because I forgot to check the photos from the post). Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.

Place dumplings on a single layer of napa cabbage leaves or on a well-greased surface in a steamer basket with lid. Steam covered for about 6 minutes.

My notes: Original recipe calls for 120 g water chestnut, but I couldn’t find it here, so I added what I had – 50 g walnuts. It really went good in it and I think I could have added even more.