Chronicles of Noodlemaking, Week 6: Dumplings!!!

These were amazing. Fun, easy, they came together without a hitch, and most importantly they were delicious. Avanti!

I wanted to make something different, but to begin with they were the same - same as last week that is, since I decided to use the Kazakh noodle dough that I had made the stretched noodles of the previous week. Once the batch was made and resting, I turned to the question of fillings.

The recipe I was working from, Savoury Boiled Dumplings (jiao zi), from Beyond the Great Wall, gave two fillings, both with pork in them. I decided to make two different fillings as well, but vegetarian of course (actually, I put some fish sauce in them, so not really veggie, but oh well). A rummage through the vegetable drawers ended up in a densely flavoured stirfry of onion, garlic, carrot and shiitake. I reserved a bit of this and used it as a flavour base for my second filling, otherwise composed of yu choy and tofu. I made these up as I went along based on memories of my Viet cooking mentor's dumplings, and happily they turned out well, except that in my slapdash cooking ways I didn't bother to press the water out of the tofu before I combined the ingredients. It worked out ok as I was able to just take from the drier bits at the top when assembling, but straining it would have been better as too much liquid in the fillings makes the dumpling wrapper fall apart.

Since the fillings were so easy I also had time to make a tomato-ginger chutney whilst the dough reposed - a Tibetan recipe from the same cookbook. It was tart, gingery, intense, and redoubled my enthusiasm for expanding my sauce repertoire. Mmm.

It was time to shape! After putting on a pot of water to come to the boil, I divided the dough in 8 pieces, and then each piece in 8 again, for 64 dumplings. It was so quick and pleasant putting them together that I could easily imagine a marathon dumpling-making session, especially sitting with a couple of friends chatting and drinking tea. If the idea appeals, just let me know...

There was no need for a rolling pin - I tried patting and stretching the dough and both worked. It stretches easily, but much more so in one direction, as cutting it severs the gluten strands that give it elasticity. So patting it out allows you to shape the piece more regularly, but stretching is faster. The results were about the same in the end - a piece more rectangular than round, but easy enough to fold into a half-moon shape, with dappled pinched edges.

The dumpling wrappers were much thicker than the commercial ones I'd used before, but they were actually easier to work with - they sealed better, didn't stick to the surface as long as I kept it floured and worked swiftly. Even my liquidy filling problems were solved by patting in a bit of extra flour to persuade the dough that it didn't want to give into structural anarchy. It wasn't long until I had shapely little rows lined up for the boiling.

I had been a bit apprehensive about the cooking, since I know dumplings are prone to falling apart, and the recipe called for boiling, not steaming. But I prefer to follow directions at least the first time through, so I tossed the first 8 into the salted rolling waters and hoped for the best. And - perfection! None of them collapsed, and though the cooking times, dumpling sizes, and dough thickness, were all slightly uneven, each dumpling had chewy bite without being either hard or soggy. They were seriously good. My only cooking complaint is that I hadn't fully precooked the yu choy, and I think it would have been better that way - the fillings were heated through, but they're not cooked for long enough to work any chemistry on the innards.

I decided to only cook half, freezing the other 32 (my nefarious plans for them include dumpling noodle soup, something I love but can never find vegetarian versions of in restaurants). Soon they were in two bowls, divided by filling type, and I was calling my mother up for a taste test.

I had put out three dipping sauces to accompany them - the tomato-ginger chutney, and then two simple traditional accompaniments. One was just soy sauce and sesame oil; the other was just fish sauce with sliced thai bird chiles. We dipped and sampled all six combinations, and then just kept eating. The verdict was unanimous - the shiitake-carrot filling was the tastiest, having much stronger flavour, but the tofu-yu choy went better with the intense taste of the chutney. The chutney was probably the overall winner, as everyone who passed through the kitchen that day found excuses to help themselves to spoonfuls of it on its own. I think my favourite pairing was the fish sauce-chile one, though. It's funny to remember my initial reservations about fermented fish condiments as contrasted to my love for them now. They add so much more than a salty flavour, especially when paired with chile.

I was amazed by the texture of the dumpling wrapper. Even though it had just been boiled for a minute, it was much more like a steamed bread, very light. In the photo if you look closely you can see little air bubbles in the dough, especially at the pleated top. Thickness didn't at all equate to heaviness.

These were so much fun to make, and not that much work, especially if you had a leftover sauce or stirfry you could recycle as a filling. Most importantly they were also a lot of fun to eat. They were out on the table with their sauces and before I knew it they were all gone. I found an interesting recipe for tapioca dough dumplings, so that might be my next dumpling foray. Miam!