Chinese Dumplings

I love Chinese food which is a good thing since I lived in Asia for so many years. I will admit that for a long time if we wanted Chinese food we just went out to eat. Near our apartment there were lots and lots of little restaurants. I didn't cook Chinese food at home.

One of my favorite things to eat was dumplings, jiaozi. Dumplings were a cheap lunch when I was working there. Just down the street from the office was a dumpling stand. On the sidewalk they had some carts that had boiling water for boiled dumplings, shuijiao and two places to fry the dumplings. At a small table was a bowl full of dumpling filling and usually grandma and another lady would sit and make dumplings.

For about 50 cents I could get 10 dumplings and if I wanted I could add a bowl of sweet and sour soup for about 30 cents.

One of my friends taught me how to make dumplings gave me her recipe.

2 pounds ground pork

medium head of cabbage finely chopped

2” piece of ginger finely chopped

2 inches of green onion finely chopped

6 tablespoons soy sauce

2-3 tablespoons sugar

Chop the cabbage as small as possible. Sprinkle some salt on it and let sit for at least 10 minutes. 

Slice the green onion and chop the ginger.

Stir-fry the green onion and chopped ginger in a bit of oil until golden brown. Turn off the heat add 6 tablespoons soy sauce and 2 to 3 tablespoons sugar.

Add to the meat mixture. Then squeeze the water from the cabbage and mix thoroughly with the meat.

Put in wrappers. I have bought my wrappers at Chinese grocery stores or you could make your own. 

To boil – bring a pan of water to boiling and then boil then they float and allow to float for 3 minutes.

Fry – heat a small amount of oil in a pan, add the dumplings, fry on one side and then the other. Add about 1 tablespoon of water, cover and allow to evaporate.

Serve with a bit of soy sauce to dip them into. 

This makes about 60 to 80 dumplings. I will often just freeze them and use them later for lunch. Just cook frozen allowing an extra minute or two. 

This is one of our favorite Chinese recipes and one that reminds us of our time in Asia.

I am linking this with www.benandme recipe round-up.

Beth