Dumpling making is the perfect weekend activity. Grab a friend, set up an assembly line and put on your favorite music. I enlisted my mom to help. She made Chinese food while I was growing up, so naturally, she had some thoughts about what should go in the filling. She helped with the seasoning and I added all the stuff (Lots of green onions! Mushrooms!). The resulting recipe is a hybrid of our experimentation.
As for the wrappers, I used a recipe from Chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s, one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco. I got inspired by his rainbow-colored dumplings and made three different doughs with spinach, red cabbage and butternut squash juice.
The project takes a bit of time but you can prepare the dough and filling the night before and leave the assembly till the next day.
Pork and Shiitake Mushroom Dumplings
Adapted from Chef Brandon Jew
Makes 48
Wrappers:
1/3 cup each spinach, red cabbage, butternut squash or beet juice*, plus extra if needed
3 cups all purpose flour, divided
2 tsp kosher salt, divided
Flour and cornstarch for dusting
Filling:
1 pound ground pork
2/3 cup green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and finely diced
1 tablespoon peeled and minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 teaspoon Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
Chinese black vinegar for serving
*For juicing, I used approximately 3 cups loosely packed fresh spinach leaves, 2 cups chopped red cabbage, 1 1/4 lb. butternut squash, 2/3 lb. fresh beets
Directions:
To make the dough:
In 3 small bowls, each add 1 cup flour, a heaping 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and 1/3 cup vegetable juice. Stir until combined, using your hands, if necessary, to bring the mixture together; it will be tacky but should not stick to your fingers. If a bit dry, add an additional teaspoon of juice, until it comes together. Cover the bowls with a damp kitchen towel and set aside at room temperature to rest for about 30 minutes.
With each dough, on a lightly floured surface, knead until it is smooth and elastic, 5 to 10 minutes. Cover again with a damp kitchen towel and set aside.
To make the filling:
In a large bowl, gently stir together the pork, green onions, mushrooms, ginger, sesame oil, rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, salt and pepper, until thoroughly combined. Set aside while you roll out the dumpling wrappers.
To make the wrappers:
Divide each colored dough into 2 pieces. Working with one piece at a time, on a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick and no wider than your pasta roller. Roll the dough through the rollers at the widest setting two times.
Now thin the dough by rolling it through the next three settings, until the dough is a little more than 1/16 inch thick. Place the dough sheet on your floured working surface and, using a 3 1/2-inch round cutter, cut out as many rounds as possible from the sheet. Transfer the rounds to a lightly floured baking sheet and set aside. Repeat with the remaining 5 pieces of dough. The scraps can be kneaded together and rolled out again, as above, to make more wrappers.
Dust 2 baking sheets with cornstarch.
To assemble:
Place a wrapper on a work surface and brush the edges very lightly with water. (Fresh dumpling wrappers require less water to stick together than purchased wrappers.) Place about 1 1/2 teaspoons of filling in the center of the wrapper, fold the wrapper in half to enclose the filling and pleat the outer edge. I was able to get 6-8 pleats. Don’t overstuff the dumplings or they won’t seal properly.
Place the finished dumpling back on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining wrappers and filling. If you’re preparing the dumplings in advance, the dumplings can be frozen on the baking sheets until firm, then stored in a sealable plastic bag until ready to cook. The dumplings don’t need to be defrosted before cooking; simply add a few minutes to the cooking time.
To cook:
In a large nonstick fry pan over medium-high heat, pour enough canola oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan. Add some of the dumplings in a single layer fanning them out from the center of the pan. Cook until sizzling, about 1 minute, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Add enough water to the pan to cover the dumplings about halfway and cover the pan with a lid. Cook for 8 minutes, then remove the lid.
Check the bottom of the dumplings; they should be golden and lightly crisped. Continue cooking, if necessary, until crisp and golden and the filling is firm, up to 5 minutes more. Transfer to a platter, cover with aluminum foil and keep warm in the oven. Repeat to cook the remaining dumplings.
Serve the dumplings with small bowls of Chinese black vinegar alongside for dipping.