INTRODUCTION

I am not familiar with Chinese Dumpling or Jiaozi when I was young. Being a descendant of immigrant from province of Fujian in Southern China, we are more used to eating wanton which is another type of dumpling..

However, when I was stationed in Northern China years ago, I have eaten lots of Jiaozi, not only savoury Jiaozi but also dessert type of sweet Jiaozi.

When I stayed in Singapore, due to lot of new immigrants from China in recent years, Jiaozi become very popular in Singapore restaurants and hawker centre.. My girl especially loved this and I have decided to prepare Jiaozi Jiaozi tonight as dinner.

Per Wikipedia,

“Jiaozi are a kind of Chinese dumpling, commonly eaten across Eastern, Central and Western Asia. Though commonly considered part of Chinese cuisine, jiaozi are also commonly eaten in many other Asian countries. Jiaozi typically consist of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. Jiaozi should not be confused with wonton, jiaozi have a thicker skin and a relatively flatter, more oblate, double-saucer like shape (similar in shape to ravioli), and are usually eaten with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce(and/or hot chili sauce); while wontons have thinner skin and are usually served in broth. The dough for the jiaozi and wonton wrappers also consist of different ingredients.”

For Jiaozi, there are many types of fillings, it can be chives, napa cabbage or just normal cabbage. In this illustration, normal cabbages were used.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: About 40 Jiaozi

Fillings

• 300 grams of minced meat
• 100 grams of cabbage – cut into small pieces
• 40 grams of carrot – sliced into thin stripes
• 3 soaked winter mushrooms – cut into small pieces
• 1 big onion – chopped
• 5 spring onions – chopped
• 1 egg
• 5 cm of ginger – pound and juice extracted
• 1 tablespoon of corn flour

Seasonings

• 2 tablespoons of light soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon of sugar (not in picture)
• 1 tablespoon of sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine
• Pinches of salt
• Dashes of white pepper

Skin

• 300 grams of plain flour
• 150 grams of water
• Pinches of salt

• Put all the ingredients for the filling in a big mixing bowl,  stir until well mixed. Let it marinate for about half an hour.

• In a whisking bowl of a standing mixer, put the flour, water and salt. Knead until it form a pliable dough. You can also do this manually. Knead by hand until the dough do not stick to the hand. Take some dough (about 10 grams) and roll it using a rolling pin in a circle shape with about 2 mm thickness. Alternatively, you can use pasta machine to roll it flat (I used thickness Number: 4 in the pasta machine). Gather the sizes, roll and cut again until all the dough are used.

• Use a cutter of about 8-10 cm in diameter and cut the dough into circle pieces. Dust flour sparingly on top of every Jiaozi skin prepared to avoid sticking.

• For wrapping, take one piece of the skin, put about a teaspoon of filling on the centre of the skin. Wet the edges of the skin with either egg white or plain water. Crimp the centre , followed by one of the sides and lastly the space in between the centre and that side. Perform the same for the other sides.

Cooking the Dumplings

• Have a big pot of water plus a few tablespoon of cooking oil, bring to boil and add the dumplings. When the dumplings float and water start to boil again, add another 2 rice bowls of cold water, let it boil again. Lastly, add the final 2 rice bowls of water and bring to boil. Once boiled, the jiaozi is considered as ready. (Note: This method of cooking Jiaozi is a very conservative method to ensure that all the meat inside the fillings are properly cooked. This step is especially important if the skin are thick. However, some recipes just required that once the dumplings float and water boil, it can be served).

• Best served with hot chilli sauce and sliced ginger in red vinegar.

Note:

• This jiaozi can be deep frozen for about 1 months after it was prepared. Dust the jiaozi with flour before deep freezing the jiaozi.

• This jiaozi can be pan fried until cooked or steamed instead of cooking in the water.

CONCLUSION

As far as I am concerned, this is an achievement though the shape can be further improved. It is the first time that I have prepared the jiaozi from scratch. It is easy for friends from Northern part of China and definitely not me..I am also happy that none of the jiaozi broke during the cooking and it took me only about 1 hour for the wrapping..

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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