International Dumpling Incident – Soup up too!

This month for our International ? Incident party, we made dumplings.

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And we celebrated a few birthdays:

Happy birthday to you all and many, many, many more International ? Incidents!

Now my choice of what to share: Chinese dumplings – my favourite sort of dumplings! I love them by the dozen….with a dipping sauce; my daughters used to love them in their lunchboxes and twice now, we’ve enjoyed them in a Chinese-style soup!

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I like how you can fill them with whatever you like and the filling ‘tastes’ of what went in – pure, clean, clear flavours, gently encased in a shell of store-bought pastry. You didn’t figure I was the super-heroine pastry maker type, did you? Ha.

To an extent I will make pastry but not when the risk of failure is high – remember that I have a contract with making failing to consistently make macarons and there’s only room for one cooking failure in this life of mine. The recipes I share today are a bit free and loose – just like the pizza I brought to our last party.

My friend J loves a mixture of shrimp and minced pork, flavoured with a tiny bit of spring onions.

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I, on the other hand l♥ve my filling to be seasoned with chopped coriander leaves and spring onions. One man’s dumpling is another man’s poison.

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One thing we both agree on is that a dash of fish sauce or two….is necessary.

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I like the fact that I could experiment with different shapes and learn the proper way to wrap dumplings (more in the video below!)

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See if you fold the wrapper along the ‘flour’  grain, you get moon-shaped dumplings, if you don’t – you get longer dumplings, which can’t quite contain all the meat! Morale of the story? If you want meaty dumplings, fold along the grain, if you want dough ones, fold across the grain!

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Ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you my recipe for the most delicious dumplings ever :-).

Dumplings

Makes up to 4 dozen

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Ingredients

Dumpling wrappers (from a Chinese shop)
300g Pork mince
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1/4 cup frozen spinach, defrosted and all the liquid/water squeezed out
1 spring onion, chopped
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, crushed
1 egg, lightly mixed
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
3 – 4 cloves crushed garlic
Salt & pepper to taste
Dash of fish sauce
1 teaspoon – tablespoon cooking oil

How to

Set the dumpling wrappers aside, in readiness (following the instructions on the packet)

Mix the meat and seasoning together, using two forks to gently combine them (just like you do with meatloaf)

Place a teaspoon full of filling in each wrapper and seal, using water as the glue.

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Once you’re ready to cook them, you have a few options

Steamed – cook them in boiling water, like you do gnocchi and wait till they’re shriveled: 6-8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and serve with a dipping sauce – I love light soy best but you can also make a combo of dumpling vinegar, soy sauce and a drop or two of sesame oil.

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Pot sticker variety (fried and then steamed) – heat up a frying pan with the oil and gently place the dumplings in to brown, 3-4 minutes. Once browned,add some water (to create steam and a shallow pool), place a lid over it and leave till dumplings shrivel and the water dries up. When you open the pan, they undersides should have browned….flip over and cook other side briefly. Enjoy!

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The dipping sauce also works well here!

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Make soup – ‘a recipe’ of sorts below!

And if you don’t like reading……….then see this video we made for you!

For the soup,  I started with a base of a Chinese-style broth, flavoured with ginger, garlic and spring onions.

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To this I added some black fungus (which I re-hydrated for about 20 minutes in water) and let cook for about 10 minutes.

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In went the dumplings and when they shrivelled, I knew they were ready. Just before serving, I tossed in some chopped coriander leaves and spring onions and voila – lunch was served.

Please check out Penny’s blog (our hostess) to see what others brought to the party. I have to love you and leave you, as we’re off to London this evening for a long weekend – we have another set of public holidays this week! I know,I know, some people right?  Take care and I’ll catch up with everyone after the break.

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*Mwah*

35 Comments

  1. » International Incident – Dumplings, another variation. Travelling in Mary Janes | Melbourne Food Blog | Malaysian Cuisine | Singaporean Cuisine | Restaurant Reviews | Recipes | says:

    […] Ozoz – Kitchen Butterfly – Jiaozi […]

  2. OMG i think i am drooling. I love dumplings but never maid my own, only spring rolls. I would love to try this out. Nice blog. You have a new follower and adding you to my blog roll.

  3. Wow,great post and wonderful pictures!! i love dumplings and can eat waaaaayyy too many of them, good job here!

  4. Oh, dear Ozoz, these are gorgeous!! I am having dumpling soup tonight – though I confess they’re from a package. 🙂 I will have to try these myself one day soon. Your filling of coriander makes my heart happy. 🙂 Hope you have a beautiful weekend!

    • Casey, my daughters and I covered the spoons in twine – funny enough, they clean a treat as the twine is more rubbery than rough grass!

  5. Hi Ozoz,
    This is a bit off topic, but I couldn’t find another way to email. I have been enjoying the blog and also live in Den Haag. I wanted to let you know that there are a couple of food events happening in Den Haag this Sunday. The Amsterdam Puur Markt is coming to the Piet Hein straat ( A few blocks away from the Albert Hein XL on Elandstraat). But on the Same day they are having Den Haag a la Carte en REstaurant proverij at the Mondriaan College at Koningin Marialaan 9. Here are a couple of URLs for the second. http://www.wijnkrant.nl/cms/publish/content/showpage.asp?pageid=2504

    http://www.horecaentree.nl/home/4329-Den_Haag_%E0_la_carte_%E9n_Restaurant-10-daagse.html

    Maybe I will see you there. If not perhaps we can get in contact and share more tips on interesting sources for food related things. Fingers crossed on the weather.

    • Thanks L, I wish I could have made it but I had a day of recovery after a few days out of town! I’ll send you an email ASA

  6. I’ve always meant to make some of these and I’m filled with enthusiasm now as you’ve made it look so easy. Lovely to hear your voice again, it’s as if I only spoke to you yesterday!

  7. Including black fungus (we call it cloud ear) in the soup for savoring dumplings sounds innovative. Happy holidays : )!

  8. Waw, Ozoz!! every dish you make is always so special, superb looking & mighty tasty!!

    Georgous food! Yummmmmmm,…thanks for sharing!

  9. Oz are you using a macro lens? Your pictures are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing – I love dumplings too – and I can also eat a dozen at a time… at the very least! 🙂

    • Trissa – macro lens I wish. I don’t have a DSLR…yet. But I do use the macro feature on my fixed lens Canon G10! Thanks for the compliment

  10. Yay! Finally heard your voice. Nice looking dumplings. I like to pan-fry-steam the dumplings that I make as well. It looks so simple but delicious isn’t it.

    Thanks for coming to the party! 🙂

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