If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that this past weekend, I made an entire armada of dumplings. A flotilla of delicious morsels. A squadron of alright, I’ll stop with the naval analogies. The point is, whenever you decide to make something like dumplings, you have to commit to it. You can’t just make a dumpling or five, just like how you can’t just eat a potato chip or a family-sized pizza.
The good news is, making these things is kind of therapeutic. I usually just set up my station: bowl of dumpling filling to my right, a baking sheet to my left, dumpling wrappers and a bowl of water somewhat in the middle, and a damp kitchen towel in front of me. Then I turn on some Mythbusters reruns or maybe Adventures in Babysitting and get to work. Once you get the hang of things, it’s almost zen.
Another plus: dumplings freeze beautifully. Just line them up on a baking sheet covered in parchment or foil (making sure the dumplings aren’t touching one another), pop them in the freezer for an hour or two, and then transfer them all into a freezer bag until you want to eat them. Your future hungry self will thank you for the foresight.
Assembling these is pretty simple, too —
- Place one heaping teaspoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper.
- Dab some water onto the edges of half the wrapper, then fold it in half like a taco.
- Press down all around the filling to the edges to push out any air pockets and to seal the dumpling.
- To make the fan shape at the top, start at one end and make a pleat like if you were making a paper fan. Do this from that one end until you get to the other. Don’t be shy about applying pressure to make those pleats stay put — the wrappers are meant to be manhandled.
Tip: I always wipe my fingers after every dumpling on a damp kitchen towel to avoid having things turn into a goopy, sticky mess by the time I’m done with all the dumplings.
Dumplings can be filled with any manner of things. These particular ones are chicken and shiitake dumplings, and are delicious pan-fried, served with a little smear of hot sauce. Yummmmm.
Chinese Chicken and Shiitake Dumplings
Slightly tweaked from Plentytude
Yield: 40-50 dumplings
Prep Time: 1-2 hours, depending on how leisurely you are assembling these
Cook Time: ~10 minutes
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 5-6 shiitake mushrooms, washed and stems removed, minced
- 2 green onions, minced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 inch ginger, peeled and grated
- 1 tbs sesame oil
- 1 tbs soy sauce
- 1 tsp Shaoxing rice cooking
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 pack dumpling/Gyoza wrappers (circular ones)
- Bowl of water
Mince the crap out of the mushroom caps, green onions, and garlic. Mix everything thoroughly in one giant bowl.
Assemble the dumplings by putting one heaping of teaspoon in the middle of a wrapper. Put water around the edges of one half of the wrapper and fold it in half like a taco. Press all the air out of the dumpling and seal the edges.
Crimp the edges and put them on a baking sheet lined with foil or parchment. Freeze for 1-2 hours and put them into a freezer bag until you’re ready to cook them.
To pan fry:
Put a little oil on a non-stick skillet. Heat on medium heat (you can cook the frozen dumplings like this too — no need to thaw) upright into the pan and let it fry for about 2 minutes until the bottoms are nicely browned.
Lay the dumplings down and cover halfway with cool water. Cover it with a lid and let it steam until most of the water is gone. Then uncover and cook until all of the water is gone.
Serve with hot sauce! These are pretty salty as-is, so if you like to eat your dumplings with dipping sauce, I’d eliminate just the salt from the filling.
To boil:
Bring water to a boil. Put the dumplings in (again, they can go in frozen — no need to thaw) and boil until the dumplings start floating. You may want to check one to see if it’s cooked all the way through before pulling them all.
Again, serve with hot sauce!
