Dumplings 101: How to make dumplings with a pasta maker

What are dumplings made of?

If you’d like to know how to make dumplings with flour, you’ve come to the right place!  All you need is flour and water:

Ingredients:

5 oz. of flour

4 fl. oz. of hot water

Directions:

1. Place the flour for your dumpling dough into a bowl that’s large enough for mixing. Gradually stir the hot water through the flour, keeping a steady mixing rhythm. Use a fork to make sure the dough fully absorbs the water. 

2. Then, ensuring that the dough isn’t too dry (add more water if needed), place it onto a clean surface for kneading. Knead the dumpling dough until it feels completely smooth.

3. Leave the dough to rest for around a half hour. You might want to focus on your dumpling filling during this time!

4. Knead the dumpling for around 5 more minutes, before rolling it to around 9 inches long and 1 inch thick. 

5. You’re now ready to portion the dough into individual dumplings. Each dumpling should be cut into a piece weighing around 0.5 oz. 

6. Roll each dumpling piece into a ball and then use a rolling pin to flatten it into a small, flat disc ready for filling!

4. Set your machine to the amount of pasta you want to make. This recipe calls for 10.5 oz. of dumpling dough.

5. As the machine starts kneading your dough, slowly pour the water through the opening at the top.

6. Cut your dough to the desired length as it extrudes from the pasta maker. Aim for 8 cm long pieces of pasta to work with. 

7. Use a circular cookie cutter to trim your rectangular piece of pasta into a disk – ready for your pork dumpling recipe!

You’re good to go. The only question that remains is, how are you going to fill your dumplings? Which ingredients are you going to use? The only limit is your imagination! It really depends on how fun you’d like your plate to look. Give your dumplings a red, green or orange twist by replacing the 3 oz. of water with 3 oz. of blended tomato, spinach or carrot! It’s your Chinese dumpling recipe, but with a twist.

Ingredients:

Here’s what you’ll need to make the filling for your dumplings. You can try mixing things up by swapping the pork for shrimp or mushrooms:

7 oz. ground pork 

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely minced

1 thumb size piece fresh ginger, finely minced

1 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry (you choose!)

0.25 tsp. freshly ground white pepper, to taste

2 tbsp. sesame oil

0.5 green onion, finely chopped 

4 oz. finely shredded Napa cabbage 

Optional: bamboo shoots, shredded

For a vegetarian twist: substitute the pork with shredded nappa cabbage, chopped portobello mushrooms, chopped green onion, shredded carrots. 

Directions:

You’ve made your dumpling sheets and now it’s time to put it all together!

1. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil.

2. Meanwhile, mix together your pork filling. For vegetable dumplings, cook the oil, ginger, garlic, and cabbage over medium-high heat. Add the other vegetables along with the soy sauce and sesame oil until the liquid begins to evaporate. 

3. Lay the dumpling sheets you made earlier on a flat surface.

4. Place a heaped teaspoon of the filling in the center of each dumpling sheet. Try this recipe with the tomato, spinach or carrot dumpling sheets too!

5. Brush the edges with water (or egg white).

6. Squeeze the dumpling sheet together into a pyramid, with the filling on the inside. 

7. Cook the dumplings in batches. Stir them occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

8. Serve on a large plate, ready for sharing!