For the main we decided to make Chinese dumplings, as according to China Highlights, these are lucky to eat at New Year. We were a little ad-hoc with our filling for these, but we used a combination of recipes from Omnivore’s Cookbook and Red House Spice.
For the filling we used pak choi, carrot, red onion and vegetarian mince. If you’re not a fan of meat substitutes, mushrooms would work just as well.
For the dumpling wrappers, it’s a simple mixture of flour and water. Red House Spice gives a great recipe for finding the perfect ratio.
While the dough is resting for the second time, it’s the perfect time to get started on the filling. Ideally you don’t want the filling too wet, to keep the dumpling integrity later!
Once the filling and the wrappers are ready, it’s time to assemble! Some of our crimping was definitely questionable, but we’ll just need to keep practising. For New Year dumplings, the more crimps the better.
We pan-fried them first to give them a crispy side. Once the bottoms had turned golden brown, we filled the pan with water up to 1/3 the height of the dumplings and added a lid to steam the dumplings through.
Although the crimping needs a little work, these were delicious! We also froze some ready-made dumplings before we cooked them, so we can enjoy even more later!
Let us know if you gave this a go (or have any crimping tips) on our social media channels.
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