Chinese Dumplings

• Dough and technique from Use Real Butter. Excerpt below is the technique I used, for more fillings and other cooking methods (and a folding tutorial) check out the original recipe here. The two fillings below were improvised by me.

Wrapper Dough

• 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (113g) warm water

In a large bowl mix flour with 1/4 cup of water and stir until water is absorbed. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time and mixing thoroughly until dough pulls away from sides of bowl. We want a firm dough that is barely sticky to the touch.

Knead the dough about twenty strokes then cover with a damp towel for 15 minutes. Take the dough and form a flattened dome. Cut into strips about 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. Shape the strips into rounded long cylinders. On a floured surface, cut the strips into 3/4 inch pieces. Press palm down on each piece to form a flat circle (you can shape the corners in with your fingers). With a rolling pin, roll out a circular wrapper from each flat disc. Take care not to roll out too thin or the dumplings will break during cooking - about 1/16th inch. Leave the centers slightly thicker than the edges. Place a tablespoon of filling in the center of each wrapper and fold the dough in half, pleating the edges along one side. Keep all unused dough under damp cloth.

Place dumplings on a single layer of napa cabbage leaves or on a well-greased surface and steam for about 6 minutes.

Sweet Potato Pork Filling

• .6 lbs ground pork
• 1 cup peeled sweet potato, boiled until fork tender and roughly chopped
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 Tbsp Minced ginger
• Soy sauce, 2 Tbsp or to taste
• Five spice powder, 1 tsp or to taste

Mix ingredients thoroughly. In order to test seasoning, take a tiny bit of filling and put it in boiling water until it is cooked through.

Black pepper probably would be good in this filling as well.

Xiao Long Bao (Soup Dumpling) Filling

• .6 lbs ground pork
• 1 cup prepared aspic (see below)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 Tbsp Minced ginger
• Soy sauce, 2 Tbsp or to taste
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic scapes, or regular garlic
• 1/4 cup minced chives
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Aspic: you can use stock solidified with gelatin or agar agar instead, but making aspic from pig feet or skin is really quite easy. I had 2 pigs feet and about 2 square feet of skin sitting around in my freezer, already earmarked for making soup dumplings, so all I had to do was chop up the skin, blanch the feet in boiling water, and then put everything in my slow cooker, cover it with water, and simmer for 2 hours. After being chilled overnight in the fridge, or a few hours in the freezer, the resulting liquid becomes firm like jello, and easily chopped up to add to the filling.

Once again, just mix all the ingredients together with a fork until well-incorporated. Soup dumplings traditionally have a round purse-like shape — I presume to make them less likely to leak — so we tried to emulate that, and were pretty successful (at leak prevention, that is — aesthetically, maybe not quite so much).