Categories: Recipes

Colourful Dumplings

Gong Xi Fa Chi everyone!

I hope you all have a prosperous, healthy and happy new year.

What Chinese animal are you?

I for one am an Ox, hubby is a Monkey, my girls are Rats and my little boy is a Goat/Sheep.

Would you like to find out what Chinese horoscope you are? Chinese Astrology Online has some great horoscopes and information.

Since it is Chinese New Year what better way to celebrate than dumplings!

Have you thought of making your very own? It is easy but time-consuming so don’t think it will be quick to organise. Making the dough, and getting the stuffing is easy, it just takes ages to put it all together. It is worth the effort as homemade dumplings are tasty and made just as you like them.

I was so happy to sit down and drink after I finished. I then left the steaming and organising to hubby as I had enough and was ready to eat my wonderful colourful creations.

Colourful dumplings waiting to be cooked

Ingredients to make the wrapper:

3 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoon of oil
2-3 cups of water. 1 cup hot and the others lukewarm. If you wish to add colour to the dough make the water be carrot juice or beetroot juice. I made the dough and separated it into 3 lots, so to have different colours. In hindsight, I should have done smaller batches of the dough and made the colour from scratch while making the dough. Doing it the long way round meant having to add more flour and most likely weaker colours. My dough from the carrot juice was more yellow and not orange, and the beetroot one was more of a pink, not a deep reddish colour.

My different coloured dough for the wrappers. Beetroot on left, Carrot in middle and Plain on right

Ingredients for the stuffing of the dumpling:

Chicken Mince if you would like them to be meat-based, if not just add vegetables.
1 Carrot & 1 cucumber grated or finely chopped. I chose to grate them as it gives a finer consistency and allows them to fit better in the wrapper.
Finely sliced shallots
Some coriander, just a sprinkling to give a bit of flavour
Soy Sauce
Chilli flakes
A little bit of cornflour to hold the mixture together. Say a spoonful or so. Mix it and see if it needs a bit more.
If you fancy other things to add to the mixture give it a go. You can be creative as you like and if you have certain things in the fridge use them and see what you can create.

Sauce

Soy Sauce
Dumpling Sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Chilli flakes or fresh-cut chillies

Method

Make the dough, then get the stuffing organised. Make sure to have a cool tea towel over the dough so it does not dry out. Once ready, section off parts of the dough and create little pancakes ready for the stuffing to sit into. See the image below.

Adding the stuffing to the wrapper

Once you have the right amount on the wrapper, pull the end up and tweak it so it becomes a little parcel. I am not the best at doing this and my dumplings are not all the same size as you are meant to do. Although it did not cause a problem. The only thing that can go wrong is that ingredients might not cook and it could be too doughy due to it being too big. So be careful.

Once all done I lined them up on greaseproof paper on a tray to make life easier. Once all were complete they were then transferred to the steaming pots.

Waiting to be cooked. I’m super hungry now after making them.

All cooked and ready to eat.

I hope you enjoy your Chinese New Year meals and maybe this has inspired you to cook your own dumplings. Enjoy!