JiaoJiao Shen shares her mom's Chinese pork dumpling recipe

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Chinese New Year is the single biggest holiday in China.  It’s like Thanksgiving and Christmas combined for Chinese people.  People exchange gifts, adults give children hong bao, or red envelopes stuffed with money and, of course, families get together to eat.

One of the most traditional dishes to eat in China on Chinese New Year is jiaozi, or dumplings.  It also happens to be my absolute most favorite food in the universe.  That’s right.  Not the world, but the universe!

Before I share my mom’s recipe, I have to tell you that even though I have made it many times over the last several years, my dumplings are nowhere near as delicious as my mother’s dumplings.  My mom has perfected her technique through years of experience, starting when she was a young girl in China.   She doesn’t have it written down anywhere and she can’t tell me how much of each ingredient to use.  A lot of Chinese cooking is like this.  Chinese women learn to make dishes by watching and helping their mothers so centuries of recipes are passed down through observation, experimentation and experience.

So the easiest way for me to share this recipe is to list the ingredients give you a general idea of how much of each item I use. 

Here goes:

JiaoJiao’s Mom’s Amazingly Delicious Chinese Pork Dumplings

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground pork

1 lb. pork sausage

Fresh ginger, minced (depends on how much you like ginger, but at least use a little)

Green onion, finely chopped (I use 3-4 stalks)

Soy sauce (this is tough because I just pour, but it’s more to taste)

Dumpling wrappers (you can buy these at any Asian supermarket.  Just remember these are ROUND)

 

Optional ingredient:

Napa cabbage (use about half the cabbage if it’s a large one)

 

Mix the pork, sausage, ginger, green onion and soy sauce in a large mixing bowl.  If you use the Napa cabbage, chop it up very very finely in a food processor.  Then use a cheese cloth to squeeze out all the excess water and mix it in with everything else.

Fold paper towel on a small place and wet with water.  The whole paper towel should be soaked through, but not dripping.

Place one side of the dumpling wrapper on the paper towel to wet it.  Put small ball of the pork mixture in the center of the wet side of the wrapper.  Fold the wrapper in half with the meat inside.  Pinch it shut tightly!  Then gently squeeze the two ends in so the center of the dumpling puffs up (this is a technique that even I have yet to perfect. Basically, you don’t want the dumpling to be flat. The meat should be round in the middle).

Once you have all your dumplings wrapped, boil a large pot of water.  Gently place dumplings in the boiling water.  DON’T CROWD THE DUMPLINGS!  You’ll have to boil them in batches, depending on how big your pot is.  You should boil for about 7-10 minutes, but I always cut one open to check that it’s cooked through.

These dumplings are delicious as they are!  But one of my favorite things to do is fry them up the next day in a pan with some oil, so the skin is golden and crispy!

 

There you have it! I wish you many successes in making your own Chinese dumplings for Chinese New Year and any other time of the year.  Feel free to email me at shen@nbcactionnews.com if you have any questions!

Happy Chinese New Year!