Food Friday: Jiaozi

Jiaozi, or Chinese dumplings, come in many varieties. This recipe calls for a pork filling, which is very traditional. You can also use chopped shrimp, ground chicken, ground beef, or a vegetable mixture. Jiaozi is one of Mustang’s favourite dishes – next to Chinese rice noodle soups!

The way the jiaozi are made is a lot like the Mennonite Warenicki, but the filling is different and you’d never serve these with Schmauntfett!

Ingredients

Wrappers

• 750ml all-purpose flour (3 cups)
• 250 to 300ml cold water
• 5ml salt (1 teaspoon)

Filling

• 350ml Chinese cabbage, shredded
• cm fresh ginger, finely chopped
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 500g ground pork
• 15ml soy sauce (1 tablespoon)
• 15ml rice cooking wine (1 tablespoon)
• 15ml sesame oil (1 tablespoon)

Directions

1. Mix the flour and salt.
2. Slowly add the cold water, mixing well, until it forms a smooth dough. Don’t add too much water or it will get sticky and hard to handle. Knead well and let stand for 30 minutes.
3. Prepare cabbage, green onion, ginger and garlic and add to ground pork.
4. Add soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil. Mix well and set aside.
5. Take the dough. Cut off a small piece and roll out into a circle about 8cm in diameter (3 inches). Repeat until you have about a dozen pices.
6. Place about 5ml (1 teaspoon) of filling in the middle of each circle of dough.
7. Fold in half and pinch outsides together. (you may need to moisten the edges with a bit of water to get them to stick together.)
8. Repeat with more dough circles until all the dough is used up. (You should have about 50-60 jiaozi.)
9. To cook, place in salted boiling water and boil for about 5 minutes.
10. Once boiled, if you wish you can fry them in some peanut or other cooking oil until golden brown on both sides.
11. Serve with a small dish of soy sauce or hot sauce for dipping. A stir-fried vegetable dish is a good accompaniment to the jiaozi.

If you’re not going to eat all the jiaozi right away (about 5 per person is usually enough), set aside the ones you will eat and lay the rest out on a cookie sheet (not touching each other) and put in the freezer. Once frozen, take off the cookie sheet and place in a plastic bag in the freezer until you’re ready to eat them.

Instead of making the wrappers, you can also buy jiaozi wrappers in most Chinese grocery stores. Any unused wrappers can also be frozen for up to about two months. (And, frankly, you can also buy pre-packaged frozen jiaozi at a lot of Chinese grocery stores. But the homemade ones are even better!)