Chinese New Year Dumplings

Ingredients

Dumpling dough:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• up to 1 ¼ cups cold water
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• or 1 packet ready made dumpling wrappers

Filling:

• 1 cup ground pork
• 1 Tb soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 Tb Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, or to taste
• 3 Tb sesame oil
• ½ spring onion, finely minced
• 1 ½ cups finely shredded cabbage
• 4 tablespoons shredded bamboo shoots
• 2 slices fresh ginger, finely minced
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely minced

To cook:

• 1-2 cups chicken stock or water

Dipping Sauce:

• 1/3 cup thin soy sauce
• 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup sliced scallions
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon sambal
• Combine all and serve in a small bowl.

Method

To make the dumpling wrappers:

Stir the salt into the flour. Slowly stir in the cold water, adding as much as is necessary to form a smooth dough. Don't add more water than is necessary. Knead the dough into a smooth ball. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 60 pieces. Roll each piece out into a circle about 3 inches in diameter.

To prepare the filling:

Add the soy sauce, salt, rice wine and white pepper to the meat and mix till combined. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Place a small portion (about 1 level tablespoon) of the filling into the middle of each wrapper. Wet the edges of the dumpling with water. Fold the dough over the filling into a half moon shape and pinch the edges to seal. Continue with the remainder of the dumplings.

To cook the dumplings:

In a hot saute pan coated well with oil, place pot stickers flat side down and cook until the bottom is browned. Have pan cover ready and add 1 cup of chicken stock, cover immediately. Be careful, the liquid will splatter! The stock will steam the pot stickers. Check them in 5 minutes as more stock may be needed. The trick here is that once the dumplings are firm and fully cooked the stock will evaporate and the bottoms will crisp-up again.

Serve pot stickers on a large platter with a bowl of dipping sauce on the side.

John Hawkesby’s wine recommendation

Gewurztraminer
Matawhero 2009

Dessert Wine
Brown Bros Special Late Harvested Orange Muscat & Flora 2009
Tolaga Bay Estate Muscat 2009