我们包饺子
Relatively speaking, we had a rather quiet Chinese New Year celebration here in North West London. Not a single firecracker was heard (although I did see mention of fireworks in West Hampstead on Twitter).
We spent the evening making 饺子 (jiǎozi) or dumplings, a traditional new year’s dish in the North of China. Making dumplings is a relatively straightforward process. But, best of all, is that on surprisingly little food, you can easily end up feeling incredibly stuffed.
Anyway, here is how we made them. Although these are the best set of dumplings we have made yet, we are still yet to perfect the shape. For some reason I the traditional dumpling shape has proved elusive, with not one of the batch looking as it should. However, don’t let that put you off. With dumplings, it’s all about the taste.
Prepare all your ingredients; pork mince, chinese leaves, vegetable oil, Sichuan pepper, salt, spring onion, ginger, and of course the dough (three small bowls of white flour mixed with one small bowl of water).
Finely chop the Chinese leaves with a heavy knife. Don’t slice them, but chop them by bringing the knife down hard on a chopping board. This YouTube video shows the technique used to chop tomato.
Don’t be tempted to use a blender here. For some reason it just isn’t the same. Besides, there is something quite satisfying about the thud of such a heavy knife.
Once the Chinese leaves are chopped, squeeze out the liquid and retain. You will need some of this later.
Heat the oil in the pan and then add the Sichuan pepper. Fry until the pepper just starts to darken and then remove the peppercorns from the pan (chopsticks help here). Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.
Add the pork to the pan, along with the ginger, salt, and spring onion. Stir in the Chinese leaves and add just enough of the juice from the leaves to bind the mixture.
There is no need to cook the filling.
Roll out as many dumpling skins as you can into 7-8cm disks. Use just enough flour to prevent these sticking to the surface or the rolling pin.
Fill with a generous amount of filling before pinching the dumplings closed with your fingers. Ensure that they are sealed tightly so that they will retain their full flavour during cooking.
Boil a pan of water and add the dumplings to the pan. When the water returns to the boil add a cup full of cold water to the pan and allow it to return to the boil. The dumplings are ready when you can just start to see the filling through the skins.
Tip: cook the dumplings in batches of no more than 20 to prevent them sticking together.
Remove from the pan, drain and serve with a splash of rice vinegar.
Feel free to share photos or tips in the comments. I’m particularly looking forward to any comments on how to shape the dumplings correctly, a technique that I have spectacularly failed to pickup on every visit to China yet.
I’ve just noticed that over on Beijing Haochi (北京好吃) they have listed five alternative fillings for dumplings. They opted to illustrate their article slightly differently, but I’m sure the fillings are just as good.
Read the full article…
Great, now I am bored AND hungry at work…
Only kidding. 看起来非常好吃！
（sorry I don’t have anything constructive about how to bao jiaozi…)
Bored and hungry? Only one thing for it… make some jiaozi and let me know any improvements to the recipe.