Yes, three hands only in the photo - the 4th is holding camera :-)

My fiancé likes to make plans.

One time he spent few hours compiling a long list of different activities that we can do together. “I put this paper on the bookshelf” – he declared proudly after loudly reading all the items – “Whenever we have free time and don’t know what to do, we can always refer to this list!”

And although free time lately has become almost a luxury, there is one thing that we always try to do once in a while. That is – cooking dumplings together.

I think that cooking together is one of those images that people picture in their heads when dreaming about happy family. And dumplings are almost an ideal dish for combined effort of two people. Because making dumplings doesn’t involve complicated technique but it is too laborious and monotonous to do it alone. Maybe this is why having factory-made dumplings in your refrigerator is a symbol of single person (along with instant noodles in your shelf :smile: ).

So let me share with you the recipe of “Chinese dumplings four hands”. Bookmark this post and next time when you want to spend real quality time with your soulmate, refer to these instructions.

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First of all decide how you will divide the tasks. One of you will make the dough and cut the wrappers. The other will prepare the filling and assemble the dumplings themselves.

Dough (this is Eugene’s responsibility)

Ingredients:

400 grams flour
100 grams water
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt

Instructions: (you will need quite a lot of free surface to knead the dough and later roll it)

Pour flour on the “working” surface. On the top of flour mountain create a little hole transforming it to volcano and put egg into the crater (to make things easier you can in advance combine egg and salt, and whip it). Then, taking dry flour from the edges of volcano, mix it with egg.

Again create a little volcano. But this time pour into crater cold water. Not all of it! Add it little by little, every time mixing it with flour and kneading for a while before adding more. Repeat it until you get the desired texture. The trick is that when you finish, the dough will be a little bit moister than you need, but after some more kneading it will get the right texture. If you make the dough for the first time – just follow the suggested proportions.

It is very important to use cold water! You can even put it in advance into refrigerator. Later it will help you to roll the dough into very thin wrappers without tearing them. But before doing it, let the dough rest a bit. Eugene usually wraps dough in clean wet towel or cloth and puts it aside for about 20-30 minutes.

Filling (my specialization)

Ingredients:

500 grams mashed pork
1 egg
3 clusters celery
50 grams fresh peanuts
3 cm ginger root
1/3 teaspoon black pepper powder
1/3 teaspoon white pepper powder
½ tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon MSG
salt to taste
2 tablespoons oil

Instructions:
Put the mashed meat into a big bowl.
Mince the ginger root.
Heat oil in the small frying pan. When oil is hot, add peanuts and fry them until the color begins to change (don’t wait until they become brown).
Take out the peanuts, let them cool down and smash in blender.
Put peanuts, black pepper powder, white pepper powder and minced ginger on meat (minced ginger should be on the top!)
Somewhere at the side of the meat mass put eggs, soy sauce, sesame oil, MSG and salt.
Now take the oil in which you fried peanuts (if it’s already not very hot – heat it again), and pour it on meat over the minced ginger. If you followed my instructions to place eggs at the side, they won’t be affected by hot oil.
Then begin vigorously mixing all ingredients in one direction (!) for about 5 minutes.
Chop the celery and mix it with meat again. Taste if the filling is salty enough and add more salt if needed.

In the upper right picture I forgot to put ginger on top of black and white pepper. Pay attention that eggs and peanuts are at the side

Assembling the dumplings

This is also done in duet.
One of you will prepare the wrappers and the other will use them to form the dumplings.

There are two ways to make wrappers.
1st method (“sausage” method)
Roll the dough in the form of long sausage and slice it with knife into small circles.
Each circle then can be thinned with a rolling pin into a wrapper.

2nd method (“sheet” method)
Divide the dough into few pieces.
Each piece then can be rolled into a large thin sheet (of irregular form).
Then by using the glass of appropriate size you can cut out the wrappers of round form.
This method is quicker, but each time you will have some residues of dough between the circles that you cut. Although you can combine them and reuse later, they are usually less elastic and not easily made thin again.

As for forming the dumplings themselves instead of awkward explanations, I put a link to the short video demonstrating the technique.

Little tip:
Usually the one who rolls dough and cuts wrappers will work quicker. So the number of wrappers on the table waiting for filling will grow. It’s important to put a little bit flour on each wrapper – otherwise they will stick together and you will have to roll and cut them again.

Cooking
Put the dumplings into boiling water and after all of them float on the surface, boil for 3 minutes more.

Sauce
1 ½ tablespoon soy sauce + ½ tablespoon sesame oil + 1 teaspoon minced ginger and garlic mixture + 1 teaspoon chopped green onion leaves + 1/3 teaspoon MSG. Mix everything.
Well… since I am from Chongqing I also add 1 teaspoon chili sauce but this is optional :smile: .

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I hope you will enjoy cooking and eating dumplings more than reading the instructions.
And if you also like Chinese dumplings and know some interesting and tasty variations of this dish – please share them in the comments section below.

Bon appetit, Crystal Tao

P.S. In Chinese, by the way, the expression “bon appetit” is literally translated as “eat slowly”  慢慢吃！(“manman chi!”)