Chinese New Year Series 1: Homemade Dumplings

Today is the first day of Chinese New Year. To celebrate it I will be posting a series of festival foods that Chinese would normally have during New Year. On the top of the list, it has to be dumplings, which is normally served at the New Year’s Eve.

Ingredients:

Pork mince (750 g), baby squid (5, coarsely chopped), egg (1), canola oil (1 tablespoons), sesame oil (1 tablespoon), ginger (about 1 tablespoon, minced), shallot (3), Chinese chive (1 small bunch), Chinese cooking wine (1 table spoon), water (1 cup), soy sauce (1/2 tablespoon), salt and white pepper, dumpling skins (2 pack).

What to do:

1. Place pork mince and chopped baby squid in a mixing bowl, add egg, canola oil, sesame oil, Chinese cooking wine and soy sauce, mix in one direction (I do clockwise, this is to help mince stuck together).
2. Place ginger, shallot and water in a blender, and blend to yield ginger & shallot water.
3. Add 1/3 of the above ginger & shallot water into pork mince and mix clockwise, then do the same 2 more times until the ginger & shallot water used up. This step to make sure water is well combined with pork mince and won’t split. At this stage the pork mince should be very easy to stir as it absorbed all that moisture.
4. Add chopped Chinese chive, and mix clockwise until well combined.
5. Season with salt and white pepper to taste.
6. Now you can start folding dumplings. I used store bought dumpling skins. They are a little bit dry and not that easy to stick together. The trick is to brush water on the edge of dumpling skin to help it stick.
7. You can boil, steam or panfry dumplings.
8. I did panfried dumplings. To panfry the dumplings, heat 1 tablespoon of canola oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Arrange dumplings neatly in the pan, and fry until the bottom of dumplings are crispy. Add 1 cup of water and cover with lid and cook over medium heat until all the water is vaporized. Uncover and cook for another 1-2 minutes or until the bottom of dumplings are crispy again.
9. Serve with Chinese vinegar and chilli oil.