Homemade Dumplings From Scratch | Taiwanese Cabbage Dumplings

Hi everyone, welcome to Cook Stacey Cook. Have you tried homemade dumplings before? Homemade dumplings are so much better than the commercially mass-produced dumplings served in many restaurants nowadays. In this episode, I will show you how to make delicious dumplings from scratch. Let's get started. To make the dough, start with some all-purpose flour in a large bowl. You can use a stand mixer if you are making more dough. Add a little of salt and mix it into the flour. Slowly add cool water and stir at the same time. When the dough looks like this, we can start to knead the dough. Dumpling dough usually has a 1 to 2 water to flour ratio when you make the dough at home. As long as you follow the ratio, you can make more or less dough for your need. If you find the dough too tough to knead, let the dough rest for 10 minutes. Continue to knead the dough until it is smooth like this. Now cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes. While the dough is resting, we will make the dipping sauce. Heat up some oil and add crushed garlic. Do this over medium-low heat because garlic burns easily. When you smell the garlic aroma, add soy sauce and sugar. The sauce is ready once it comes to a boil. You can use it as it is. But you can customize this sauce by adding vinegar or chili sauce or sesame sauce. I let my family add what they like later. Now let's make the filling for the dumplings. The filling is always made with vegetable and meat. We are using cabbage today. Dice the cabbage and add some salt to it. Make sure to mix the salt evenly. This salting process sweats the cabbage so it's softer and easier to wrap. But it also preserves the crunchiness to balance the texture of the filling. Let the cabbage sweat for 20 minutes. Finely chop some green onion. Splitting the bottom part makes it easier and faster. For the meat, you can use minced chicken, beef or pork. Prepare the meat by adding egg, sugar, salt and corn starch. Then stir in one direction until everything becomes glutinous. Then add some sesame oil to lock in the juice during cooking. Now the cabbage has been sweating for 20 minutes. Squeeze out the excess moisture. The quickest way is using your hands. Put the cabbage and green onion together and add some sesame oil. Mixing the sesame oil with the vegetables. The sesame oil will lock in the moisture of the vegetable. Then mix the vegetable and the minced meat together. And the filling is ready. Now let's make the wrapping for the dumplings. The dough has been resting for 30 minutes. Divide the dough in half. Cover one half to prevent it from drying up. Shape the other half into a long and thin loaf. Cut the loaf into small pieces while rolling the dough back and forth in a zigzag pattern. Cut each piece to about 1 tablespoon in size. Lightly sprinkle some flour on the dough and roughly shape them into rounds by pressing on them. Sprinkle more flour if needed. We can roll them into dumpling wrappers now. Using a small rolling pin, roll from the edge to the center. Turning the dough about 1 eighth of a turn each time. It takes coordination between your hands. But it's much easier than it looks. Let's take a closer look. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, done. Take another look from another angle. Homemade wrappers are so much better than store-bought wrappers. Because they are more pliable to use and won't break open during cooking. It's also so much cheaper. Okay, let's wrap some dumplings. If you are new to wrapping dumplings, start with smaller filling and adjust the amount as you get better at it. Make a fold in the outer layer like this and pinch the folds together. Now look at this dumpling. Looks good, right? Let's take a closer look. Put about 1 spoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper. Fold the wrapper and pinch the top together. Then make folds in the outer layer and pinch them together like this. Fold and pinch. Do this on both sides. Fold and pinch. And you just made your dumpling. I will show you two more ways to wrap dumplings. The first is folding the wrapper and pinching the top. Then using both hands, pressing the wrapper together with your thumb and index finger. This is the way to wrap dumplings quickly. Another way is wrap them like raviolis on the countertop. Press on the edges with your fingers like this and hold out the dumpling. Then push the ring of the wrapper towards the middle like this. Look, so easy to shape it, right? Now we are ready to cook the dumplings. I am boiling them in water today. You can also pan-fry these dumplings to make potstickers. They are the same thing cooked in different ways. Add some salt to the boiling water. Then add the dumplings. You don't want to overcrowd the pot. Gently stir the water so the dumplings don't stick to the bottom. Cover the pot and let the water come to a boil. Now add one cup of cold water and let it come to a boil again. The dumplings are ready when the water boils. This is the method traditionally used to time the cooking perfectly. Scoop out the dumplings once it's done. Don't leave them in the water. Now dip them in our dipping sauce and enjoy. They are juicy and tasty. If you like to add some heat to the taste, Tabasco sauce goes very well with dumplings. Let me know if you like the recipe today. Thank you for watching and I will see you next time.