Dumpling Party

I like dumplings as much as or more than any other food. I’m only talking about Asian-style dumplings – little balls of forcemeat contained in sealed purses of dough. I’ve never been quite sure about this, but I think the Southern use of the word refers to wads of buttery dough that are generally baked on top of a stew, like Chicken and Dumplings, which sounds great but it’s a different thing entirely and I’ve never quite understood what it is. No, I like wontons, potstickers, dumplings…whatever you want to call them, and I like it when you bite into them and they squirt tongue-searingly hot juices and fat into your mouth. You can usually tell when I’ve been eating dumplings because the roof of my mouth has been burned to shit. Not that you’re looking in there.

Making dumplings at home is easy enough – go to Chinatown, find a reputable dealer, and buy a frozen bag of 50 for eight bucks. Buy yourself a bamboo steamer, line the bottom of each layer with cabbage, place the frozen dumplings inside so they don’t touch each other or the edges, then steam till their done – then head up a skillet with sesame oil till it’s screaming hot and fry the dumplings for about 3 minutes on one side and one minute on the other. Keys to this are not ripping the skin – you let all those juices out before you get to eat it and I’ll slap you myself. This is also a reason to run home as soon as you buy the bag of 50 – if they start to thaw, they’ll stick to one another, and good luck separating them in tact.

What an ideal food. You can find places in Chinatown that will give you 4 for a dollar or 5 for a dollar – some are great and others not so much, but each one is unique. I’ve found that there are other dumpling nuts like myself, who have a particular insane love of dumplings and can eat seemingly limitless quantities. It was often suggested that I try to eat the entire bag of 50 in one sitting – although I never went there, I still believe that at one time it was possible. I like to eat dumplings much the way you eat a soup dumpling (another one of my all time favorites, and an ingenious design): bite a whole in one corner, suck all the juices out, add soy and hot sauce, then eat whole. That’s my technique, I’m sure there are other good ones. Funny, because I really don’t like ravioli. Maybe because you don’t eat ravioli whole – and that to me is part of the dumpling experience…those who do a dumpling in 2 or 3 bites just aren’t on the same page as me.

Making dumplings at home from scratch is another thing altogether. I find it difficult or two reasons: 1) it’s incredibly labor-intensive and time consuming, and 2) I suck with dough. I’ve always thought of cooking as an artistic process – you push and pull, tease it this way and that, tasting all along the way as it comes together; while baking is a science – you add all the ingredients in their exact amounts, then add heat and let the reactions occur. Of course, this is an inane and reductive depiction – there is plenty of science to cooking and it can be extremely exacting, just as there is plenty of artistry to baking – but they’re just two fundamentally different disciplines, and I suck at baking. I’ve known plenty of master cooks who haven’t measured an ingredient maybe ever in their lives before adding it to a dish, and do everything on feel, and master bakers who have made literally hundreds of thousands of a single dish but still measure out the ingredients each time before combining them, despite how good their feel is. And there is plenty of feel needed to work with dough – to get it just the right consistency does take a masterful touch, and as I mentioned, I suck with dough. Bread-making is an even more shrouded mystery to me – once you add yeast, it becomes a living thing, and coaxing it to just the perfect consistency has always eluded me. But I’m way off topic.

I usually deal with the latter of the two challenges by skipping the dough and using pre-made wonton skins. These work beautifully for me, although they mean that these dumplings are really steam or boil only. Wonton skins don’t pan fry in the way that a flour and water dough will. I’ve made my own dumpling skins with moderate success, using the technique found here. But using wonton skins more or less alleviates the second challenge, and does help with the first. But to truly overcome this challenge, here’s a better idea: invite some free labor over to help!

Here’s the idea for a dumpling party: you make all of the forcemeats in advance, which is easy to do, invite a bunch of people over to your house and then you all sit around manufacturing dumplings. With 5 or 6 of you sitting around, it actually goes pretty quick, and obviously you can get drunk while you do it. Then you boil up the dumplings in great big batches and all eat dumplings together. Any left over dumplings get dusted with flour and frozen, and then you’ve got dumplings in your freezer for an easy 8 minute meal or snack somewhere down the line. Pretty ingenious, right?

I’m suggesting three different kinds of dumplings: pork and chive (the classic), duck (apologies to Dim Sum Go Go), and shrimp. Feel free to look up other recipes and go for it, though.

Forcemeat recipe 1 (pork and scallion):

• 1.5 pounds ground pork (you want this to be on the fatty side, which usually shouldn’t be a problem….some mixtures sold in Chinatown are labeled 50-50, which to me seems excessive.)
• 2 scallions, sliced on the bias in ½” rounds
• 2 TBS minced garlic
• 2 TBS minced ginger
• 2 TBS sesame oil
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 1 TBS rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp black pepper, coarse grind
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• Optional: ½ cup of Napa cabbage, julienned, blanched, drained, and pressed dry on tea towels or paper towels.

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a bowl and whip together with a spoon until homogenous. Fry a small spoonful in peanut oil and taste for seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Place in fridge and wait for the dumpling party guests.

Note: ground chicken may be substituted for ground pork. Keep all the ratios the same, but add an extra TBS of a neutral oil, like peanut oil, to keep the mixture from becoming too dry.

Forcemeat recipe 2 (Shrimp):

• 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 TBS minced ginger, or ginger paste
• 1 TBS garlic paste
• ½ bunch cilantro, stems included, minced (about ½ cup)
• 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
• 2 tsp peanut oil
• 1 TBSP corn starch
• ½ tsp black (or white) pepper
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp sugar
• 2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

This one takes a bit of forethought in its prep: soaking the shrimp in baking soda and water for about 30 minutes seems to yield a snappier, firmer bite. I’m not really sure of the science behind this, only that it works. Think har gow, the ubiquitous shrimp dumplings of dim sum – the snap of the shrimp ball in each one contributes a lot to its overall deliciousness.

So – start by peeling and deveining your shrimp, saving your shells for another cause, of course. Cut the shrimp into four or five pieces, then cover with water and stir in the baking soda. Place in the fridge and leave it there for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, mince your cilantro. Try to start with clean, dry cilantro if possible. You want to minimize the amount of liquid that each of the internal ingredients will give up when they start to cook, since this will break apart the forcemeat and change the consistency of what you’ve got planned. So several of the instructions below will call attention to that concept. The ideal dumpling, in most cases, will have a tightly packed nugget of forcemeat inside the skin, not all falling apart and swimming around in watery vegetable liquid. There are exceptions to this (not the watery vegetable liquid, but the tightly packed part) – notably, the duck dumpling recipe that follows. In that case, though, the insides of the dumpling are still dry.

So after you’ve minced your cilantro, it’s a good idea to wad it up in a paper towel or two and press down on your cutting board or squeeze in your hand to extract some additional liquid. This is especially important if you’ve just washed your cilantro before cutting it and it’s not completely dry.

When the shrimp has marinated for 30 minutes in the baking soda water, drain it and dry it thoroughly between paper towels. Separate half and finely mince. Add the remaining ingredients and whip with a spoon till homogenous. Fold in the remaining pieces of shrimp and mix until evenly distributed. Place in the refrigerator and wait for the dumpling party guests.

Forcemeat recipe 3 (duck):

• 1 Chinatown-style roast duck, meat pulled and shredded
• 6 oz shitake mushroom caps, sliced thin
• 2 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS sesame oil
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 TBS minced ginger
• A small amount of hoisin sauce (place about a ½ cup in a small bowl and return whatever you don’t use to the jar)

You know how you walk around Chinatown and see all those golden-brown dead birds dripping fat in the windows? Find a reputable one, go buy a duck, and take it home. The green ginger-scallion sauce that they give you with it is amazing – save it. Pull all the meat off and shred any large chunks with either your fingers or two forks. Bits of crispy skin are ok to leave in here and there, but don’t go crazy. Save the bones for something else. Mix the minced ginger into the pulled meat and set aside.

Thinly slice the mushroom caps and place a non-stick frying pan on the stove over high heat. Add the sesame oil and continue to heat until almost smoking. Add the mushroom slices, toss to coat thoroughly, and cook without stirring for one minute. Add the soy sauce and stir vigorously. Continue cooking on high heat, stirring continuously, until the soy has evaporated and the mushroom slices are cooked through and almost dry. Remove from heat and place in bowl. Set all of your ingredients aside until the dumpling party guests arrive.

How to throw the party:

Once everyone has washed their hands and is seated around a central table or workspace, provide small bowls of eggwash (1 egg, beaten, plus a little water) to each person or group, distribute stacks of wonton skins, and place the forcemeats out on the table. Lightly dust sheet pans or trays with flour. Everyone should put their dumplings on the tray, not touching one another. It pays to put these in the fridge as soon as possible. There’s no harm in dusting with a little extra flour either, especially if your room is warm. You don’t want things to start sweating and sticking together, which could rip the skin when separated, and potentially ruin untold dumplings. The success of these things lie in all of the fats and juices remaining in the purse that is the skin – if there is a rip, anywhere from creation to the mouth, you won’t get the desired effect.

To make the first two recipes, start with a wonton skin in one hand and place a small spoonful of forcemeat in the middle. Less is more, believe me. If you don’t seal it up because forcemeat is spluging out, you will have the same issue as a rip. Dip one finger in the egg wash and paint around the edge of one half of the dumpling skin. There are several ways to seal it – I try to join one corner, then make successive pleats around the edge. You can also fold into a half moon and crimp with a small fork. If you have square wontons skins you can fold diagonally, then join the arms across the middle in a classic wonton purse shape. Step-by-step how-tos for any of these techniques and many more are widely available online. No matter what, it will take some practice – so good thing you’ve got lots and lots of dumplings to make. If you’re alone I recommend finding a TV show you can watch serially – if you’re with others, gossiping about whoever’s not there seems to be the time-honored mode of choice to accompany the repetitive activity.

To make the duck dumpling, I like to pile a small amount of the duck-ginger mixture into the skin, add a drop of hoisin, then add a pinch of mushroom slices to the top. Same technique or any of your choosing follows for sealing and crimping.

To cook, bring a large pot of water to a boil, add salt, then add the dumplings in batches. They float when they’re done, although you can remove one and cut it open to be sure. Remove with a large skimmer, serve and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauces at once.

You may also steam these, lining the bottom of the steamer with cabbage or lettuce leaves so the dumplings don’t stick and subsequently tear. The duck dumplings do especially will with this gentle method.