For Chinese New Year it is tradition to eat dumplings or jiaozi (饺子). They typically consist of a ground meat and/or a vegetable filling wrapped into a piece of dough. They can be boiled, steamed, or pen fried.

Dumplings are easy to prepare, healthy, and should bring good luck.

 

Experimental Procedure for 18 Dumplings

1 Preparation of the Dough

125 mL of hot water are gradually added to 150 g of flour. The mixture is mixed with a chopstick until the water is incorporated and knead by hand on a clean surface until it is smooth. More water needs to be added if the mixture seems dry and more flour if it seems too sticky.

Then the mixture is covered with a towel to rest for 20–30 min.

 

2 Preparation of the Filling

110 g of minced meat (pork, chicken, mutton, beef, fish, or shrimp) and 75 g of finely chopped Chinese leaves or spinach are mixed with 15 g of finely chopped ginger, 15 mL of soy souce, 15 mL of sesame oil, 8 mL of rice wine (or dry sherry), 22 g of finely chopped spring onions, 7 g NaCl, and 3 g black pepper.

 

3 Synthesis of the Dumpling

The dough is kneaded for 5 min until it is smooth. Then it is divided into 16 equal portions. Each of them is rolled with a rolling pin into a round flat plate of about 9 cm in diameter and stored underneath the towel to prevent it from drying out.

Then about 15 g of filling are placed in the center of a plate, the edges of the plate are moistened with water and then pinched together. The dumplings are sealed by pressing the edges together.

A large pot of water is brought to boil and the dumplings are added. The mixture is stirred to prevent clogging. 450 mL of cold water are added and brought to boil again. Another 450 mL of cold water is added and brought to boil. Then one dumpling is checked if it is cooked through. The mixture is boiled another few minutes if necessary. The dumlings are isolated by solid/fluid separation.

The dumplings are served with a liquid mixture prepared out of 15 mL of 5–20 % acetic acid, 45 mL of soy sauce, and 7.5 mL of chili oil.

 

Enjoy your Jiazi!
Comments on the preparation are welcome.

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• Chinese Pork Potsticker Dumplings,
  Ken Hom,
  BBC

 

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