How To Make Steamed Pork Dumplings? Very easy ...
To start, you'll need a few things that you might not keep on hand depending on how extreme a couponer you are.
Decent soy sauce:
If you find yourself reaching for the bottom shelf to save 30 cents on a
freaking bottle of $2.50 soy sauce please stop and take heed. There is no more effective way to ruin an Asian dish than by including La Choy soy sauce.
Do not choose La Choy. It's not even real soy sauce. It's made from
caramel coloring and Rob Ford's chin smegma and it will seriously ruin
everything. If you already bought La Choy, take it back. It's really
that bad. Buy something better, even if it's just a bottle of Kikkoman.
Wrappers:
We're not going to make our own dumpling wrappers here, first of all
because you've never used a rolling pin before, and secondly because it
would take four hours to do that, and you don't have four hours to
devote to dumpling wrappers. So, we're buying pre-made. They'll be
called "wonton wrappers" on their packaging and are generally found in a
different place in every grocery store. Save yourself the time and just
ask someone who works there so that he can go ask three other people
who work there who will make wild guesses where they are. If possible,
check to make sure your wonton wrappers were made relatively recently:
The edges should bend a little bit without cracking.
Ginger root: Fresh ginger is cheap as hell, so if you get $3 worth that will be plenty.
Meat: Swing
by the meats and pick up 32 oz. of ground pork. You can substitute
ground turkey if you like—the turkey will actually absorb the flavor of
the other ingredients a little better—but my great-grandfather didn't
shoot a turkey so we're using pork.
Sesame oil:
This has a low smoke-point, so it's almost useless for searing anything
but your thumb, but it adds great flavor to stir-frys, or you can mix
it with peanut butter, hoisin, and Sriracha to make your own spicy
peanut sauce.
Miscellany:
You'll also need minced garlic salt, pepper, at least one bunch of
cilantro, and a yellow onion. Also, some booze: Making dumplings is a
lot easier than you might think, but it's still a process, and anything
that's a process is best enjoyed while drinking.
Now that you're home, open your drink of choice and get started. For my part I will be fucking with Iron Mike Gallego
and drinking premixed mimosa. This was $5.99 for a bottle, so it's
basically the Pert Plus of mimosas except it tastes a little worse.
On
to the dumplings. Begin with the ginger root; for this dish we'll need
about two tablespoons' worth. Peeling ginger root is a pain in the ass
usually best delegated to children or a cousin you don't particularly
like, but it's a whole lot easier if you use the edge of a spoon to
remove the grayish-brownish skin from the root. After you peel it you
can either mince the absolute shit out of it or just use a grater. Dump
the minced/grated ginger in a decent-sized bowl. You're going to be
combining all the ingredients in there eventually.
Next, dice up some garlic. Maybe 2-3 cloves worth, or about a tablespoon. Into the bowl.
Dice
three quarters of your yellow onion, making the pieces small enough
that you won't feel like you should be calling them pork-and-onion
dumplings. If they're the size of chocolate chips, that's great, you're
done, get the onion in the bowl.
Chop
up an entire bunch-worth of cilantro. Hell, make it two if you're
feeling wild. You can cut all the way down the stem if you want, but the
very bottoms aren't that tasty. Dump this into the bowl. Please note
that if you don't like cilantro, you may feel free to substitute some
other recipe and talk to your doctor about your defective mouth.
Add
the ground pork and give everything a good stir. The mixture should
start to smell vaguely like dumplings at this point. As you're stirring,
add six tablespoons (or around half a cup*)
of the soy sauce, and a tablespoon of the sesame oil. Throw in a pinch
of salt and ground pepper, but be careful with the salt, since the soy
sauce is basically a more delicious, liquid version of salt, and there's
already plenty of that in there.
Stir
this mixture around for a minute or two and stick your nose down in
that bowl. It should smell really, really good now. I hope you're still
drinking.
OK,
now's the time to fill the actual dumplings themselves. Grab four
plates and fill a small bowl with warm water. Lay a wrapper out in front
of you and put about a small meatball's worth of filling in the center
of the wrapper. Dip your hand in the water, try not to pee yourself, and
trace the outline of the wonton wrapper with your wet finger. By
putting moisture on the edges of the wrapper, we're going to make sure
they stick together when we fold this thing.
There
are any number of ways to fold a dumpling, but the objective here is to
seal up the meaty center with an airtight blanket of wrapper. You can
fold all of the corners together, or if you have circular wrappers you
can fold them in half to make a little coin purse. By this time you are
buzzed and very, very hungry from smelling delicious dumpling filling;
forget about style points. The quantities listed above will be enough to
produce 40 to 50 dumplings; as you wrap them, try to arrange them so
that they're not touching each other any more than absolutely necessary,
as they have a tendency to stick and can tear when pulled apart.
Here's how my wife does it:
Do whatever works for you. As long as they're sealed shut, no one's going to care too much what they look like.
Unquestionably,
the two best ways to cook dumplings are steaming and frying. Frying
gives them that wonderful crispy exterior, but steaming is the more
traditional way; also, since the dumpling's contents are trapped inside
the sealed wrapper, you won't lose any flavor to the water vapor, unlike
when you steam, say, a fucking cheeseburger.
If
you really want to fry the dumplings, simply pour a half-inch of sturdy
oil in the bottom of a pan and set it to medium-high heat. About five
minutes per side should do the trick, and they're done. The rest of us
are going to steam our dumplings, because this is a recipe for steamed
dumplings.
Fill
the bottom of a steamer with about 2 inches of water and bring that
mofo to a boil. Place some parchment paper down on the upper levels of
the steamer so that the dumplings don't stick to it. If you don't have
parchment paper, cabbage or lettuce works; if you don't have cabbage or
lettuce, just rub some oil on the bottom of the steamer trays; if you
don't have parchment paper or cabbage or lettuce or oil, cry into your
hands.
(Note: If you don't have a steamer and are determined not to fry your dumplings, you can boil them for about five minutes.)
Once the
water's boiling, put the dumplings in the steamer, cover them, and let
them cook over high heat for 11 minutes (10 minutes if you're using
turkey). While the dumplings cook, it's time to make your dipping
sauce. Grab a couple of shallow bowls, cover the bottom of each with soy
sauce, then add a splash of sesame oil, a squirt of sriracha, and just a few drops of white vinegar. Stir. Done.
That's it.
Remove the cooked dumplings from the steamer when the time's up, let
them sit a few minutes to cool, and grab your chopsticks. Simple,
delicious, and you didn't even have to kill a boar. Enjoy.