韭菜饺子 - Pork and Leek Dumplings

The beautiful thing about jiaozi is its versatility. For the filling, you can pretty much use anything you want: ground pork is the most common ingredient, but you can also fill these jiaozi/dumplings with beef, chicken, shrimp, vegetables (for vegetarian jiaozi/dumplings), or be creative and do a filling of different combos. Once I dined at a Jiaozi restaurant (dumpling house) in Beijing and it serves no less than 30 different kinds of dumplings with every possible savory filling possible. It’s simply mind boggling to decide which one to order, but suffice it to say, you can’t go wrong with jiaozi, regardless of the filling.

Yield:

Serves 2-4

Ingredients

1. For the filling:
2. =============
3. 1/2 pound ground pork
4. 1/2 cup of chopped chinese leeks
5. 1/8 teaspoon salt
6. 1 1/2 teaspoon rice wine
7. A few dashes of white pepper powder
8. 5 drops of sesame oil
9. .
10. For the skin:
11. ============
12. 2 cups all-purpose flour
13. 1/2 cup water
14. .
15. Black vinegar (to serve)

Directions

1. Mix the flour with water and knead it for about 20-25 minutes or until the dough gets soft. Separate the dough into two equal portions and roll them into cylinders (about 1 inch in diameter). Cover them with wet towel and set aside.
2. Prepare the chives by chopping off the root (white part) of the chives. Use only the green part. Mix the chives with ground pork and add all the seasonings. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
3. To prepare the skin, cut the dough into 1/4 in. length and use a rolling pin to flatten it until it becomes a round skin about 3 inch in diameter. Put a small spoonful of filling into the center of the skin and seal it up tightly with your fingers. (No pleating is needed for this recipe).
4. Heat up a pot of hot water until it boils. Drop the dumplings into the boiling water and cover the pot. As soon as the dumplings start to float (meaning they are cooked), dish them out on a serving plate. Serve hot with black vinegar.

Notes