Homemade Dumplings

I have been wanting to make my own dumplings for some time now.  I had bought the wrappers a while ago and it has just been sitting in the freezer waiting to be used.  The reason I have been putting it off is I knew that it was going to be very labor intensive for each dumpling.

I woke up Sunday morning and decided that it was time.  My goal was to make ginger and cabbage pork with dried shrimp dumplings.  Ingredients in the dumplings are: napa cabbage, green onions, ginger, onion, garlic, pork and dried shrimp.

What you are going to want to do is, roughly chop the cabbage and sprinkle it with salt.  Cabbage has plenty of moisture in it that needs to be pulled out so it does not make the dumpling wrap too soggy.  Let the cabbage and salt sit in the strainer for about 45 minutes and just watch all the water pull out of the cabbage.  Squeeze out the excess moisture as well.

For the dried shrimp, let it soak in hot water to let it re-hydrate.  Reserve some of the water that the shrimp was soaking in to add to your dumpling mixture.  With the remaining ingredients, chop those up.  Mix all the ingredients together with some soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil.  The the mixture rest in the fridge.

I had let the mixture sit all day in the fridge because I decided I wanted to do a cook out that day since it was just too nice out to not.

After the cookout, I got home around 9PM that night and began to form the dumplings.  The first 10 seems like it took forever, but after that, it started going pretty quickly.  The most tedious part of making dumplings and making the pleats and I had about 8 to 10 pleats per dumplings.  For 45 minutes straight, it was pinch and pleat...pinch and pleat...pinch and pleat...over and over again.  After all the pleating, I let the dumplings freeze over night.

Tonight (Tuesday) I finally had a chance to actually cook it.  I guess a dumpling turns into a potsticker when you pan sear it.  Add some oil to your pan and put the dumplings on there.  Right as it starts to brown, add in some water and cover it with a lid to steam it.

I already had in my head how I wanted to do the presentation for the dumplings...I had been planning it since yesterday.  I sliced some cucumber to place the dumplings on.  Made a dipping sauce and poured it over the dumpling and onto the cucumbers.  Finished it off was thinly sliced green onions and dried shrimp "powder".

These little dumplings were amazing.  The ginger really came out in the meat and the little dried shrimps were like little burst of salt as you bite into it.