I wish we could get good dumplings closer to home but instead I decided to whip up some of my own and get good at it myself.
I was inspired by Cakies dumpling dinner party, after checking out a number of recipes and a peek in the pantry I improvised my own recipe and it was a HIT!
A pack of pork mince (about 500-600gms)
A nice big handful of prawns, chopped finely
A finely chopped spring onion
A teaspoon of sesame oil
A teaspoon of black pepper
A teaspoon of dry sherry
A teaspoon of grated ginger
A teaspoon of finely chopped garlic
A tablespoon soy sauce
Dumpling wrappers - I cheat and get mine ready made from the supermarket. Round wrappers seem to work the best.
Mix all the ingredients together in a pretty bowl or Pyrex dish and dollop a teaspoon of the mixture in the center of each dumpling wrapper. Have a small bowl of water handy to dip your finger in and moisten the edges of the wrapper, fold the edges in and kinda pleat them with your fingers.
Line a steamer with baking paper, pop the dumplings in there and steam for 5ish mins. Remove and let them cool off a little, then lightly fry them in some sesame oil. Yum! The cooling period lets them get nicely browned and prevents them sticking to the frying pan.
These quantities made about 25 dumplings.
I also made some easy sweet soy sauce and I gotta say this stuff is AMAZING!
Here's how:
Heat 2/3 of a cup of brown, granulated sugar, 2 cups of soy sauce, a tablespoon of water, a teaspoon of ginger, a teaspoon of garlic and half a star anise in a pot until the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil then simmer for about 10 mins until the liquid gets a bit goopy.
Fish out the star anise and pour into a bottle and refrigerate. The sauce thickens even more when cold to form a delicious dipping sauce.
Oh goodness, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! The best bit about making dumplings is that you can freeze them after the steaming stage to thaw and fry when you are feeling peckish... like now. Excuse me, I'm heading to the freezer!
X Steph