The Best Dumplings...
...are whatever you have in your kitchen
After making my first few batches of Chinese dumplings — pork & chive, chicken & cabbage — I learned that you can totally go off-script and be okay.
As long as you have the basic flavoring components — soy, chicken powder, sesame oil, garlic & ginger (can be dried), or even just some form of salt — and keep in mind which veggies are dry or liquidy, you can play around with veggie fillers, some which act like natural binders. Shredded or grated carrot, mushrooms, especially dried, reconstituted shiitake, Napa cabbage, chives, and other herbs do well in a pinch.
You don’t have to limit yourself to what the recipe says. Please don’t.
I recently made the best chicken and cabbage dumplings ever. I took care to salt and squeeze the cabbage liquid first, then made sure to balance the ground meat (doesn’t have to be chicken only) with vegetable fillers.
I had leftover chives from the previous dumplings, the recipe didn’t use any, but that’s okay, it worked out.
I added grated garlic, another recipe omission, because garlic and ginger are perfect Asian partners.
You don’t want just meat, because, like with Italian meatballs, it’ll just taste like lead meat weights, and nobody wants that.
Does the thought of grinding your own chicken send you screaming into the night? Buy already ground chicken, or turkey. Try beef if chicken or pork isn’t your thing.
Personally, I prefer ground poultry, less gamey.
Play with your fillings, shaping, and pleating. Let your family and friends be happy guinea pigs. Watch and follow a lot of YouTube videos. They help.
Soon, you’ll have frozen dumplings for whenever you have a craving for Din Tai Fung style spicy wontons. Just toss in boiling water, wait two-three minutes, and add chili oil.
Don’t have all the complicated ingredients for chili oil? Buy some ready-made on Amazon. They have five spice Szechuan pepper and regular chili crisp versions, without the sweet-sour.
Find a good base recipe online, and make it your own.
Tiffy Cooks has a chicken and cabbage recipe that produces a juicy, tender, delicious dumpling. You need way more than 50 wrappers, btw. Make sure you have several on hand, just in case you run out. Leave to thaw on the counter the day of or in the fridge the day before…or…make your own. They’re easier than you think.
Lisa Lin on YouTube has an easy dumpling wrapper recipe (tutorial below) that doesn’t require you spending 20 minutes rolling two thin, see-through sheets or adding salt (Beijing style wrappers don’t have any, because the flavor’s in the filling).
Start there…
