Chinese New Year has just gone, so it’s a great time to add these to your repertoire (if I had been more organised I would have put this up sooner). I don’t typically like dumplings. I find them smooshy, gooey and watery…plus I can never be to sure what’s in them when I buy them, just like when I buy a meatpie…what’s in there?! When I make them myself I know what’s going in them! They are the best dumplings I have ever had, if I do say so myself! They can be steamed or cooked pot-sticker style. I prefer to pot-sticker them as I like the texture of the crunch on one side and softness on the other side.
Although this recipe is for chicken dumplings you can substitute the chicken for other meats. Pork or chicken & prawn or pork & prawn all work very well.
I planted some Wombok this year especially for dumplings. I was surprised that it came up so well. However, it had to be picked pretty quickly once it was ready and I’m sad so say it once made it into one batch of dumplings and the rest went to seed in the veggie patch…there are just not enough hours in the day!

Makes 24

Ingredients
2 cups flour
3/4 cup boiling water
1 chicken breast, minced
2cm cube piece of ginger, finely grated
1 Wombok (chinese cabbage), shredded
4 spring onions, finely sliced
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chinese rice wine
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Dipping sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 red birdseye chilli, finely sliced

Method
Make the dough first as it will need to rest (if you don’t want to make the dough you can always buy gow gee wrappers from the supermarket). Combine the flour and water (make sure it is just boiled) in a food processor until just combined. Remove the dough and knead by hand for a couple of minutes. Wrap in cling wrap and set aside while you make the dumpling mixture.
For the dumpling mixture all that needs to be done is combine all the ingredients. Make sure the ingredients are all covered in the sauces. Be careful the mixture isn’t too sloppy as this will make the dumplings very difficult to handle – plus they’ll taste a little sloppy.
Now the dough needs to be rolled out, make sure you flour the bench sufficiently along the way. I find it’s easiest to divide the dough into two and roll it into a log with a diameter of about an inch. Then chop into rounds that about about 10g each. One by one roll the dough into thin rounds. Place a round of dough in the palm of one hand and scoop 1 tbsp of dumpling mixture into the middle. Enclose the mixture by folding over the dough and pinching the edges together. You can also make pretty patterns! Place the dumplings on a floured tray (the sloppier the dumpling mixture the more likely they are to stick to the tray).
If you want potstickers heat the vegetable oil in a  frypan that has a lid. Arrange the dumplings in the pan on their sides and cook on a medium heat for about 4 minutes, or until they start to brown on the underside. Pour in 1/2 cup of water and cover with the lid. Once the water has evaporated remove the lid and continue to cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from the pan to a platter. Combine the soy and chilli and serve with the potstickers (the earlier you do this more the soy will take on the chilli flavour – we like to do this early!).

If you don’t want to eat all the dumplings at once place the dumplings in the freezer on a tray. Make sure the dumplings aren’t touching each other. Once they are frozen you can put them in a container or plastic bag. Defrost before cooking according to the above method.

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