Recipe: Dumplings with a Crispy Skirt
Asian cuisine is more popular than ever, but making perfect bao buns or gyoza yourself can still be quite tricky. Former FavorFlav contributor Emma de Thouars (known for Emma’s food annoyances) shows in her new cookbook Amazing Asia that Asian cooking really isn’t difficult at all. You just need to know how to do it and what to get, for example, to make these dumplings with a crispy skirt.
“These are more or less the most impressive dumplings you can put on the table. As if the homemade dumpling wrappers weren’t enough, these dumplings also come with a crispy skirt. I didn’t come up with that name myself, by the way; in English, these gems are always listed on menus as ‘dumplings in a crispy skirt’, and the crispy layer does rather resemble an elegant skirt. That skirt is visually stunning, but it’s just as spectacular when you put it in your mouth. The crispy layer combined with the juicy dumpling filling is pure heaven.”
How to make the dumplings
- Mix 300 grams of wheat flour with the salt and 150 milliliters of water and knead for 8 to 10 minutes until you have a smooth dough. This works best in a stand mixer with a dough hook, but you can also do it by hand. Shape the dough into a ball, cover it and let it rest for about 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, make the filling. Mix the ground pork with the egg, soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine, oyster sauce, white pepper, sesame oil and a pinch of salt. Slice the scallion into thin rings and place on top of the dumpling filling.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of neutral oil in a small saucepan. Test whether the oil is hot enough by dropping a piece of scallion into the oil. If it starts to sizzle, you’re good to go. Pour the hot oil over the scallion on top of the dumpling filling and mix everything together with chopsticks or a spoon. Finely chop the (Chinese) chives and mix them into the filling just before making the dumplings.
- After resting, divide the dough into 30 equal pieces and roll them into balls. The best way to do this is to make one long roll of dough and divide it into pieces. Dust your work surface with flour and roll out each ball into a circle approximately 10 centimeters in diameter. Roll the edges slightly thinner and leave the middle a little thicker.
- I like to roll out the wrappers in batches of 5 and fill those dumplings immediately, but you can also roll out all the wrappers at once and fill them all together. In that case, stack the wrappers with a little flour between them. Don’t leave the wrappers for too long, though; if it’s warm in the house, they’ll stick back together and you’ll end up with one big ball of dough. Trust me, that will make you very grumpy.
- Place a dumpling wrapper on your palm and spoon approximately 1 teaspoon of dumpling filling into the center. Fold the wrapper in half and pinch the edges together to seal the dumpling. If you feel like it and have the skills, you can make beautiful pleats when sealing them, but you serve the dumplings upside down, so why bother? Make pleats with your fingers at the top and pinch them closed. Repeat until all the filling and wrappers are used.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the dumplings in it for about 3 minutes, until they float to the surface. Drain and keep the dumplings next to one another on a plate so they don’t stick together.
- Heat neutral oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Fry the dumplings in it for 3 to 4 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the 2 tablespoons of flour with 80 milliliters of water to make a slurry. Pour it into the pan and swirl the pan so the mixture is spread everywhere. Fry for another 2 to 3 minutes until the slurry has turned into a deliciously crispy layer. Slide it from the pan onto a plate and turn it over so the crispy layer is on top.
- Mix all the ingredients for the dipping sauce and serve immediately.
Title: Amazing Asia
Author: Emma de Thouars
Price: €29.99
Publisher: Nijgh & van Ditmar
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