Dumpling Wrapper and Sauce Recipe

This recipe for dumpling wraps came from Wei Guo. If you want more delicious Chinese cuisine recipes, check out her blog, "Red House Spice". 

Dumplings/ jiǎozi 饺子) -  a small item of food consisting of a thin sheet of dough wrapped around a savory filling and cooked by steaming or frying.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups or 250g of all purpose flour.
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons or 130g of water.

Prepare the dough:

  • Add flour to a mixing bowl and gradually mix in the water until no more loose flour can be seen.
  • Combine and knead into dough.
  • After kneading, leave to rest, while covered, for 10 minutes.
  • After the 10 minutes are up, knead again until smooth.
  • Cover again and leave to rest for 30-60 minutes.

 Making the dumpling:

Recipe from "The Woks of Life: A Culinary Genealogy"

Dumplings come in 3 different ways,  steamed (zhēngjiǎo, 蒸饺), pan-fried (jiānjiǎo, 煎饺), or boiled (shuǐjiǎo, 水饺). 

Steamed:

1. Fill a wok (with lid) or metal steamer with water. If using a wok with a bamboo steamer, make sure there’s enough water in the wok to come up the sides of the steamer about 1 cm, to prevent scorching. If using a metal steamer or pan/steam rack set-up, just make sure there’s enough water to simmer for 10 minutes without drying out. Make sure the water isn’t high enough to touch the dumplings during steaming.

2. Line your steamer with a non-stick liner. You can use large, flat leaves of cabbage or lettuce for this.

3. Place the dumplings about 1-inch apart, giving them some room to expand. 

Pan-fried:
1. Heat cast iron pan over medium high heat until smoking. If using a non-stick pan, heat over medium heat until hot.
2. Add a couple tablespoons vegetable oil, and then add the dumplings. Fry until the bottoms of the dumplings are lightly golden brown.
3. Get a tight fitting lid for your pan and hold it out in front of you as a kind of shield between you and the pan (you're about to add the water to steam the dumplings, which will cause some oil splatter). Add about ½ cup water to the pan and immediately cover. Allow to steam in the pan until all the water has cooked off, about 7 minutes.
4. Uncover and continue cooking until the pan is completely dry and the bottoms of the dumplings are crispy.
Boiled:
1. Depending on the number of dumplings you’re cooking, bring a medium to large pot of water to a boil.
2. Drop in the dumplings, and stir immediately so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot.
3. Bring back to a boil, and boil for 6-8 minutes, depending on their size, until cooked through. Ideally, anytime the water comes up to a vigorous boil, add 1/4 cup of cold water. This cools the water down and prevents the dumpling wrappers from overcooking and becoming starchy. 
Tip:
If cooking frozen dumplings, there is no need to thaw them first. The instructions above are still accurate, you just may want to cook them on the longer side of the range (8 minutes for boiling, 10 minutes for steaming).
Dumpling sauce:
  • Rice vinegar
  • Soy sauce

Prepare the sauce:

  • In a small bowl, add one part soy sauce and one part rice vinegar. And you're done! You can also adjust amount to taste.