Pork and chive dumplings

Name: Pork and chive dumplings
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Ingredients: 300g of plain flour; 1 pinch of salt; 222ml of boiling water; 300g of pork mince; 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda; 1 tsp cornflour; 1 1/4 tsp salt; 1 tsp sugar; 1/4 tsp ground black pepper; 3 tbsp of water, cold; 1 tbsp of rice wine; 2 tsp soy sauce; 2 tbsp of sesame oil; 1 bok choi, large, finely chopped; 3 tbsp of chives, finely chopped; 2 tsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped; 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped; 1 tbsp of oil; 100ml of water; 1 tsp sesame oil; 1 tbsp of soy sauce; 1 tsp tomato chilli sauce

by Nisha Thomas

Item 1 of 1

Starter
easy
makes 16
1 hour 15 minutes

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Try your hand at these delicious pork and chive dumplings for your Chinese New Year celebrations. Experiment with ingredients and dipping sauces as you please to create a wonderful dim sum masterpiece.

First published in 2015

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Chinese food is an absolute favourite in our household and truth be told, we can have it every other day without any complaint. That said, I hardly ever make Chinese food at home, not because it's difficult, but because it's a taste I struggle to recreate at home. Except for dumplings, which I absolutely love experimenting with.

You can fill them with anything you want and what's even better is that you can freeze them until that dumpling craving hits you.

Making dumplings these days is so achievable with all the different types of wrappers available in the market. I have tried both the frozen wrappers as well as the ones listed below, and I've realised that there's not much of a difference. So if you do get put off by that extra step, by all means go for the store-bought wrappers. They work just fine.

I have also experimented with various fillings, and although the pork and chive filling is my favourite, the prawn filling is a close second. A vegetarian filling would also taste fab.

The dipping sauce is also quite versatile. My husband loves to dip the dumplings in some soy sauce, whereas I prefer a bit of the chilli kick. If you do have chilli oil, use that instead of the sesame oil and omit the chilli sauce. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Metric

Imperial

Wrapper

300g of plain flour
1 pinch of salt
222ml of boiling water

Filling

300g of pork mince
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cornflour
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
3 tbsp of water, cold
1 tbsp of rice wine
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp of sesame oil
1 bok choi, large, finely chopped
3 tbsp of chives, finely chopped
2 tsp ginger, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

To cook

1 tbsp of oil
100ml of water

Dipping sauce

1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp of soy sauce
1 tsp tomato chilli sauce

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Method

Mix together the flour, salt and boiling water in a mixing bowl using a fork or a wooden ladle. Mix until the dough comes together into a ball

Transfer the dough onto the kitchen counter and knead until smooth. Keep aside for half an hour

Into another bowl add the minced pork followed by all the ingredients until the sesame oil. Stir together until all the liquid is absorbed and it all starts binding together

Throw in the bok choy, chives, ginger and garlic and mix till well combined. Keep aside while you roll out the wrapper

Divide the dough into 2 halves, divide each half into 16 small pieces. Try and keep each piece as even as possible to get dumpling of the same size

Lightly flour your work surface, and roll out each of the dough slices into a thin disc, around 8 to 9 cm in diameter. If you are one of those, like me, who can't get a round shape, then just divide the dough into 4 and roll it out into bigger rounds and then using a lid or ramekin cut out smaller rounds. This way you ensure the same size

When ready to cook, place a heaped teaspoon of filling into the centre of the wrapper and fold to stick the corners. You can go a bit fancy and do pleats by pinching the edges together for that authentic look, but really it's not required. Just make sure you don't get any filling on the edges and pinch them firmly as you don't want them to open up while cooking

You can freeze the dumplings in a freezer bag at this point and continue with the next step when ready to cook

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the dumplings, flat side down for about 2 to 3 minutes, in batches of 10 to 12 depending on the size of the saucepan of course. They can be snugly fit in the saucepan, so fit in as many as possible

Once golden on the bottom, turn the dumplings over, add the water and immediately cover with a lid. Let the dumplings cook in the steam for about 10 minutes. If in between you notice that all the water has evaporated, then add a little more (not too much though)

After about 10 minutes and all the water has evaporated, open the lid and continue cooking for about a minute after which you can carefully lift them off the pan and serve with the sauce. Repeat with the remaining dumplings

Make the dipping sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients in a bowl

First published in 2015

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Nisha Thomas

Nisha is a freelance writer, avid food blogger and wannabe food photographer.

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