Family Lunch: Home Delivery – October 2020

During the two-week quarantine period we had to undergo after arriving in the UK, my fellow resident and I thought about various activities to entertain ourselves – one of which was a dumpling party. It was a chance to bring the household together, in the kitchen, and make something by hand. You can find many recipes for dumplings online; however, what I would like to share in this recipe is the gesture of shaping dumplings with your hands.

Makes around 80 dumplings

FILLING
300g cabbage
200g peeled shrimps
500g minced pork
100g diced scallion or chives
20g minced ginger
5 cloves of minced garlic
1 egg
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp rice wine or white wine
1 tsp white pepper
1.5 tsp salt

80 circular dumpling skins

DIPPING SAUCE
3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice or black vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp chilli sauce (try Lao Gan Ma/Old Godmother brand)
2 cloves minced garlic
A handful of coriander or diced scallion

FILLING

Chop and boil the cabbage. Drain, and then squeeze water out with your hands. Dice finely. Dry and dice peeled shrimps – not too small, roughly the size of your pinky nails. Combine cabbage, shrimps, pork, and the rest of the ingredients together in a big bowl. Mix well.

FOLD

You can make your dumplings any shape you want, including triangles, rectangles, ravioli, empanadas, or hot pockets. However, the following is a combination of how I have been taught at dumpling parties, by dumpling enthusiasts and an old lady who makes dumplings for a living.

Stretch a dumpling skin into an oval shape and hold it in one palm. Place one heaped tablespoon of filling at its centre. Dip your index finger in water and wet the dumpling skin’s upper rim.

Now the tricky part: fold the dumpling with both of your hands. Hold the unfolded dumpling between your thumbs and index fingers. The fold will rest on the part of your hands that connect your thumbs to your index fingers, called ‘tiger’s mouth’ in Mandarin. Close the fold by pressing your thumbs against your index fingers, and make sure both ends are sealed. Viewed from the top, the seam should be curved in a crescent.

BOIL

Bring a pot of water to boil. To avoid the dumplings sticking together, stir the water in circular motions before dropping the dumplings into the pot (like how you make poached eggs). Careful not to burn yourself: dip one tip of the dumpling into the water before letting go so the water doesn’t splash. Keep on stirring slowly, add half cup of cold water, cover the lid, and let it boil again. After repeating this step three times the dumplings should be ready. They should float at the top of the water.

DIP

Mix all the ingredients together and dip each dumpling in before eating!