Steamed Pork Dumplings
In addition to the green tea ginger ice cream that I made for our Olympics party Sunday night, I made these steamed dumplings. This culinary adventure was informed in large part by Alton Brown's Good Eats episode called Wanton Ways, in which Alton not only gave me free license to use store-bought wanton wrappers, but also instructed me on how to build a steamer for about $2.
As for the store bought wrappers, I was fully intending to make my own but ran out of time. The only problem with the store-boughts was that they're square and steamed dumplings are typically semi-circles, so I pulled out my set of all-purpose round cutters and put the appropriately-sized cutter to work.
And as for the homemade steamer, buy a three-pack of 9"ish round tinfoil trays, poke a bunch of holes in them; then place a round metal ring (like the cutter linked to above) in a large pot with a half-inch of water in the bottom, put a tinfoil tray filled with evenly spaced dumplings on top of the metal ring, with another metal ring in the middle of the tinfoil tray, then stack another tray on top of the first, then a third on top of the second. Cover the pot and you've got a steamer for the price of some tinfoil trays. Two more tips—give the tinfoil trays a light coat of nonstick spray and don't overlap the dumplings because they'll stick to one another if they're touching one another.
This recipe will make about 100 dumplings, so you may want to cut it in half.
- 1 small bell pepper*, diced
- 1 hot chili*, minced (I used Thai chili like the one pictured above.)
- 5 large spring onions*, diced
- 5 tablespoons cilantro*, finely chopped
- 1/4 lb. shitake mushrooms*, diced
- 1.5 lb. ground pork*
- thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely grated
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 3 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup corn starch
- 4 large egg whites
- 1 additional egg white, beaten, for sealing dumpling wrappers
- Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly.
- Place a small spoonful of this dumpling filling on your dumpling wrapper, with the amount depending on the size of your wrapper. Brush some egg white around the edge of the wrapper on the surfaces that will be touching when you close it. The egg white helps seal the dumpling. Close the dumpling wrapper, taking care to press out all of the air. Repeat until you run out of wrappers or filling.
- Steam the dumplings for about 15 minutes, until the pork is thoroughly cooked.
Finally, I made a dipping sauce for these dumplings using soy sauce, a touch of Chinese chili-garlic paste, a bit of lime juice, some freshly-grated ginger and some green onion.
These turned out really well. They're fun, delicious party food—particularly with the Olympics underway in China right now. Give them a try and let me know what you think.
I have been DYING to make potstickers for ages. I think I may have to take the leap this weekend.
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My understanding is that, for potstickers, you make the dumplings the same way, but rather than steaming them from the outset, you instead put them in a skillet or some such vessel without oil and allow them to cook for a couple of minutes undisturbed . . . so they actually stick to the pot as they brown . . . then you add water or broth and cover . . . to allow them to finish cooking by steaming, which also unsticks them without tearing them. I can't wait to hear how it goes!
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I'm also in Lemmonex's situation. I've long planned to make dumplings (well, potstickers really-- I like the extra touch of brown), but I've put it off for some reason! I like my dumplings to have some cabbage in them too, so I can pretend I'm eating a lot of vegetables
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I love the idea of the homemade steamer!! These look delicious, and are making me quite hungry!
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I want to try these! They look great!
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Sounds to me like you bought wonton wrappers. Whenever my mom makes them she buys the square ones for wontons and round ones for dumplings.
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Yep . . . they were definitely wonton wrappers . . . that's what the label said and I knew it wasn't what I wanted. But the only other option was about 6" round egg roll wrappers. They had no small round dumpling wrappers. I need to find a store in my area that has the dumpling wrappers! Thanks for the heads up.
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I've been to the Ukraine recently and tasted such dumplings -- they are incredibly tasty! Ukranians call them 'pelmeni'
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