Pork and Cabbage Dumplings
Traditional pork and cabbage dumplings; meat can be swapped out for ground chicken or chopped shrimp. Homemade dumpling wrappers give you the best results!
Equipment
- 1 Standup Mixer
Ingredients
Dumpling Wrappers
- 5 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups water, room temperature
Dumpling Filling
- 1 lb ground pork, 80/20 mix lean/fat preferred
- 1/2 head napa cabbage (about 8-10 leaves)
- 1 tbs kosher salt
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 3 tbs soy sauce
- 2 tbs oyster sauce
- 1 tsp finely minced ginger
Instructions
Dumpling Wrappers
- In a standup mixer, put all 5 cups of flour into the bowl. With the dough hook on medium speed, very slowly pour in the 2 cups of water and continue mixing on this speed until all the flour has been incorporated, and until the dough ball is smooth (roughly 3-4 minutes).
- Set dough aside and put a damp dish towel over it to prevent the outer layer from drying out.
Dumpling filling
- Chop the napa cabbage until the pieces are very small (but not fine). You can try to do this in a food processor, but be careful not to over process it, otherwise it will become too watery. Just a few rough chops in the processor would do it. The pieces should be roughly 1/8" long/wide.
- Take the chopped cabbage and put in a bowl, and sprinkle about 1 tbs kosher salt over it, and mix until it is incorporated throughout. Let rest for about 10-15 minutes, so that the excess water from the cabbage will come out. Squeeze out the water with a cheese cloth or just with your hands.
- In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, wrung out cabbage, chopped green onions, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and ginger, and mix with your hands until the mixture is uniform.
Assembling the Dumplings
- On a well-floured surface, make a loop with the dough, then divide it into four parts. Roll one part (cover the rest to prevent them from drying out) into a rope then cut into ~10-12 equal sections.
- Sprinkle more all purpose flour across the cut pieces of dough, then press each piece into a small disc with the palm of your hand. You may need to flour the discs again between steps to prevent from sticking to the rolling pin or board. Then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a thin disc. The discs should be about 3-3.5" in diameter.
- Use the fresh wrappers immediately, within 15 minutes of rolling them out, otherwise they will become dry and will not adhere will when you are wrapping the dumplings.
- In each finished wrapper, put ~1 tbs of filling in the middle. Fold the disc in half and pinch the wrapper together at the top. Then make two folds on each side, until the dumpling looks like a fan. Make sure it’s completely sealed.
- Repeat the above steps until all of the dough is used up.
- Once all of your dumplings are assembled, bring a large pot of water to a boil (about 2/3 of the way full). Once the water is boiling, drop about 10-15 dumplings in at a time, making sure to gently swirl the water every now and then so that the dumplings don't stick to the bottom. Once all the dumplings are floating at the top, they are ready to be enjoyed. Bon appetit!
Notes
**If you don't want to make the wrappers from scratch, you can just get a pack of dumpling wrappers from your local Asian grocery store. Instead of pinching the dough like you would from the fresh ones, dampen the edges of each circular wrapper with some water (have a small dish of water set aside so that you can do this easily for each dumpling).