Dumpling Darling

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right?. Well since I’m in China, the group of other volunteers and I thought we should do what the Chinese do and make homemade dumplings for dinner.

Making dumplings is relatively simple. The host of our hostel gave us the ingredients and all we had to do was the assembling. Below I have given a brief step-by-step guide if you would like to fancy our method of putting together this tasty traditional meal.

Step 1: Assemble ingredients.

• -       This step is pretty simple. You will need whatever you wish to fill your dumplings with (we chose some shredded pork and scallions), and the dough you are using for the shelling. We were given ours already done, but I have included a link with a great recipe to make your own.
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Step 2: Fill the Shell

• -       Again, relatively simple. You fill the shell with a small amount of your filling. Be careful to not put too much or you wont be able to close your treat.

Step 3: Sealing and Shaping the Dumpling

• -       Take your chopsticks, dip them in a bit of water, and wipe the edges of the dough. Pinch those edges together to form a “pleated cresent”. This ensures your fillings don’t fall out during frying. You can also try different shapes like volunteer Johanna did with her batch (see photo above!)

Step 4: Frying

• -       In order to cook the dough and the fillings, you will now need to fry the dumplings. Place a batch in a greased frying pan (make sure they aren’t touching!), and place over medium high heat. After about 2 minutes the dumplings will begin to sizzle, add about ½ cup of water to the pan cover with a lid. Let the dumplings sit on a bit lower heat for bout 5 minutes or until they have formed to a nice golden brown crust.

Step 5 – Enjoy!

Myself holding one of our large batch
of dumplings! 

• - We enjoyed our dumplings with traditional white rice and a few sides of vegetables. It was one of the only meals I really enjoyed while at the center as if you know me, I am the pickiest eater on the planet. Ask anyone who has eaten with me and you will believe it.

A few photos of the different foods we enjoyed as sides to our dumplings. As always, There was white rice too! 

 If you are up for adventure, you can experiment with different fillings. We tried to add a little strawberry jam as a filling to some of our dumplings. Once cooked, we discovered the jam had seeped out and made the crust more like sugary, fried bread. They were still delicious nonetheless.