How Dumplings are Made in 10 Countries | Epicurious

You're about to see 10 chefs from 10 different countries make dumplings. There are a lot of different types of dumplings in China. One of the my favorite is this Sichuan style dumplings. The flavor is very complex yet so well balanced so I want to show everyone how to make these dumplings. First I'm going to show you how to make chili oil. Neutral oil here I'm aromatics and spices like ginger, scallion, garlic, bay leaf, and star anise. Once they are slightly charred, remove the aromatics and spices from the oil and I'm going to reheat the oil until almost smoking. Some chili flakes I made with Sichuan chilies. These are called Er Jing Tiao and they have a well-balanced spiciness and aroma. In the chili flakes we're going to add ground Sichuan peppercorn powder. I have some white sesame seeds. Pour the oil over the chili flakes. The chili oil looks a little bit dark brown but let it sit overnight and the red color will show and the flavor actually will be a little bit better the next day. I'm going to show you how to make the filling. We have ground pork here about 30% fat. I'm going to add some seasoning, salt, soy sauce, cooking wine. The wine will remove the gaminess of the meat dishes and adds extra flavor. White pepper powder and Sichuan peppercorn powder to make this extra Sichuan MSG and then sesame oil. I also have some ginger scallion water. I'm going to slowly add the water to the meat to add extra moisture. You don't want to over stir it. It will bruise the scallions and it will turn the scallions to a bitter taste. So normally we will soak them in water and then just use the flavored water for the filling. Do this for about 10-20 minutes. We want to recombine the ground meat to make the texture a little bit firm and bouncy. I know it's almost ready when the texture becomes very pasty. Put a little bit of meat in the center. I'm going to moist the wrapper and this is a very easy way of wrapping dumplings. Seal it up while pushing the side of the wrappers up a little bit and it'll create beautiful natural pleats. All right 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Eight is an auspicious number. Let's cook them. I'm going to add the dumplings into boiling water and you want to add the dumplings one by one so they don't stick together and also you want to stir the water right away. Use the back of your spoon and gently so you don't break the wrappers. Once the water is boiling, turn it to low to let it simmer. Five minutes is up. Dumplings are cooked. I know they're cooked because they are floating on top of the water and also the wrapper is translucent. We're going to add some flavored soy sauce first and chili oil and a kick. We're going to add some pureed garlic on top. Before you serve, mix everything together and enjoy. It's perfect. Manti is a very simple dumpling made of ground meat served with a yogurt sauce and butter. When my mom asked me what she should make for me, this is what I demand. I say just make manti. The filling is very simple. Ground beef, finely chopped onions. In Turkish cuisine, parsley goes into everything. Some black pepper and some salt. I'm just going to mix this. This dough is very similar to pasta dough. It has eggs and also water. It's a tough dough. To roll the dough, I'm going to use this very thin roller. Name of this tool is oklava. In Turkey, this is used for making all sorts of things but mostly like very thin roll doughs like baklava or filo dough. This is something I saw my mom do all the time. So she rolls the dough and then the dough rolls out so so even. This is an amazing technique. The next step is cutting this dough. So I'm going to use this tool I have which is not traditional. This is a tool that we use in bakery. My mom would use just a knife but again she's the best. I'm not that skilled. I'm going to cut these tiny squares. You know smaller the dumplings, more skilled you are. I made a tiny batch for this video. In a household, this would be as big as this board. This dish is a very good example of Turkish cuisine. Everything is very labor intensive, kind of small. Absolutely worth it though. I like to hold them square, pinch the sides together, and then meet them in the middle. It will be like an assembly line where my mom fill it with the filling and then me, my sisters, and my father would fold the dumplings. We cook mantı just like cooking pasta. This is going to take about five minutes maybe. Once the dumplings start floating, that's my indicator that they are close to be ready. This goes right into the plate. I do want a little bit of the liquid so you don't need to drain the whole thing. Mantı is served with garlic yogurt sauce. I'm going to put on top, very generous. This is a butter sauce with tomato paste. So this is just melted butter. Once the butter starts bubbling, you add the tomato paste and that's it. Very simple sauce. I'd like to put a little spice, so this is just crushed red peppers. Finally, anything I put garlic yogurt on, I put dried mint. Let's see. I nailed it. Not as good as my mom's but I'm saying this to please my mom. I feel like if somebody makes this dish to you, they'd love you. My dumpling is going to be a hitokuchi gyoza, translated to English as one bite dumpling. It's very common one in Fukuoka side which is southern side of Japan's traditional way of eating gyoza and this is my personal favorite. This one. The structure is very simple. This is ground pork. I'd like to mix and knead it a little bit so that it gets a little sticky. And now we'll put cabbage, onions. Once incorporated, season everything starting with ginger and garlic. A touch of sesame oil. White pepper and salt. And last but not least, this is just a liquid mix with the oyster sauce, mirin, sake, and soy sauce. Why don't we always buy wheat wrapper? I think it's more convenient. First of all, let's put the water around the wrapper. Scoop a little bit. Not too much. Yeah, that's near the edge. Pinch, tuck, press. Pinch, tuck, press. Pinch, tuck, press. It's tightly sealed so that when you cook it, juice is not going to come out. Season with just a touch of sesame oil. And right now, pan is not heating up. The first piece of gyoza. All the gyoza is going to be cooked at the same time and it's going to be on a plate like a round circle so that not only you but then your friends, your family, they will share that plate on a low heat. I'm cooking at the bottom of the gyoza so that it's going to have a foundation. What I'm looking for is the bottom is crispy but inside is juicy. And then you got the water potato starch mixture. Not too much because if you put it too much, the wing is going to be like really gooey and it takes it a lot of time to cook off and that's when the gyoza itself is going to start burning out. So once you start hearing this drier sound, you're going to take off your lid and then wait for this to evaporate more so that you're going to get the crispy wing. Those lids off and then you see these bubbles are getting larger and larger and now it starts getting smaller all of a sudden because there's not enough water. Now this is the time you're going to do max heat and finish it. Give it a plate, on, then gyoza this. This is Japanese sampling. Hear the sound? Sounds nice. I think I nailed it. Yeah, absolutely. The dish that I'm going to be making today are called ukri che modak. It's something that I grew up eating. It's also the offering that we made to Lord Ganesh. Made once during the year. I'm very excited to be making this today. First thing that I have with me is a dough called the ukri, made out of rice flour, milk and water. These are not like wontons or dumplings where the thinner they are, the better they are. Take the dough ball in your hand and then you use the force of your palms to get like a really nice circular shape and then you just use your thumb, press into it while making a cup shape, keeping the edges a little thicker than the center of the dough. This is where it gets a little intricate. I'm trying to do as many as I can, leaving a little bit of space right in the middle for that filling to go in. The filling that goes inside is called asaran. It's made with fresh grated coconuts, some jaggery, poppy seeds, toasted cashews and almonds and the point is to get all those pleats and all those petals that you form onto the middle. Once you have the basic thing formed, make like a tip out of it, as pointy as you can, so it doesn't open when it's steaming up. Traditionally, whenever we make these, we always make them in sets of 11, 21, 51, 101 because you never make an even number. That's just the way that they're offered to God. We're going to get ready for steaming but what I'm going to do before that is I'm going to take some water, I'm just going to put it right on the step and I'm going to put a strand or two of saffron right on top of these. It symbolizes that this is an offering made to God. We're letting God know that we care about you and we're very happy that you've come and you've visited us. I have a nice pot of water which has been boiling. Traditionally, they're put on banana leaves and then steamed. I'm going to put a little bit of ghee on them and start putting them into the steamer and that's it. It's been eight minutes, we've had our modak steaming. Traditionally, what I would do is I would first offer one to God and then I would start eating it but I'm just going to do that in my mind. Take the tip off, just make like a little nice cavity in this. I have some melted warm ghee. I'm gonna have my first bite. This takes me back straight home. I haven't had these in years. It's just these different textures coming in together. It's outstanding. Khinkali is a dish that Georgians are very proud of. Every region makes their own version of it. This is gonna be kalakuri style khinkali made with beef, pork, onions, touch of herbs, and wild caraway. We have here already ground beef and pork that has already mixed caraway. You can use regular caraway if you don't have wild caraway. You want some fat for your meat. Fat is what gives an extra juice and the flavor. We're gonna take this finely chopped cilantro, some of these onions, salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper. This water is what helps develop the soup that comes out of the dumpling when you take the first bite. You can have this for lunch but you wouldn't make this at home for lunch. You would go to the khinkali house and have like a dozen with beer possibly. This is a basic flour water salt dough. It's made with cold water because you don't want your flour to start cooking as you're making it. The stronger the better because you get more shiny dough. You get a lot more broth in it so you make it full folds. There's a saying that this had 19 temples which was related to some pre-christian song tradition. Slowly start bringing this together almost like a flower that starts opening up. Push up sort of like lengthening the neck and you can feel it in your hand and it's ready to be twisted and done. Hot water with generous serving of salt. Mix the water to create this vortex and you start slowly lowering the dumplings. You want them to move around. You don't want them to stick. Fresh khinkali of this size takes about seven to eight minutes. You can see them start floating up and turning upside down. 30 seconds to go and before we take this out we pour a cold water on top to get that foam off and also it makes it more shiny. They are still puffed up they're gonna dip off in a second. Garnish it with our spice mix with summer savory and a little bit of a red pepper for extra kick. Usually it goes on top but I prefer to put it around the plate so you can dip your dumpling in it for as much spice and flavor as you want. You cannot eat the khinkali with the fork and knife. You eat it with your hand. So you grab it from the top, turn it upside down, take a little bite, drink the broth and then you'll eat the rest. These are the best dumplings in the world. I'm making Ukrainian dumpling which we call vareniki. Vareniki are very important in Ukraine. They are soul food. We eat vareniki often at family gathering or at any holidays. First step for making the filling you are boiling the potatoes. After they boiled you mash them and you add farmer cheese and fried onion to it. Farmer cheese and mashed potato the most traditional filling you can get. Everybody in Ukraine, almost everybody, make their own farmer cheese so it's like ingredient you always have in your fridge. The dough what my mom taught me to make it's eggs, milk, water and flour, a little bit salt. It's gonna take around a couple of minutes until desired thinness. That's why Ukrainian women are so strong. It's not easy to roll. I'm looking about for two millimeters in thickness. It's very helpful to have a metal cutter when we make 8,000 vareniki a day but at home we usually use a glass. And now we're gonna be filling vareniki. The filling make sure it's not too much. Stretch the dough a little bit and just pinch it together. The water is boiling. Season it with the salt. Now carefully place vareniki inside the boiling water but be very gentle. I'm gonna boil up to five minutes. When they float boil them another four or five minutes. In Ukraine we eat vareniki with caramelized onions and sour cream. The more the better. Amazing filling. Delicious. Just like mama's. The popular dumplings in Indonesia we call it siomay. Historically from Chinese cuisine assimilated Indonesia through Chinese traders. Indonesian eat siomay any time of the day. There's a street cart version of siomay. They walk around with a huge steamer and they come to everybody's houses. Siomay! Siomay! Oh it brings me back. Yeah this is Spanish mackerel. Next we do ice to help with the texture to stay chewy not to break apart. Garlic powder. I like it garlicky. Onion powder. Black pepper. Salt. In Indonesian we call this Here it's called chayote and I'm very happy I can find it anywhere because in Hispanic recipe people use chayote also. Scallions. Fish sauce. A little bit. Brings a very umami flavor. This is very important ingredient tapioca flour. Gives chewy texture to the siomay. Let's get dirty. Siomay is not only a dumpling but it's a whole meal. So we're not only gonna put it in the wrapper but also put it on the other ingredients to the potato and the tofu. For the siomay with wonton I do this to make a base to put on the wonton. Each corner meet like this and then another and then we put a little bit of carrots. The next one. The siomay are done. They're going to the steamer for around 35 to 40 minutes. It's beautiful and smells like the food cart from Jakarta. Potato. Tofu. The siomay. We use peanut sauce on many many things. On rice, snacks, fritters. Almost anything. I'm gonna drizzle sweet soy sauce. In Indonesia we eat siomay with fork or spoon. Oh yeah. It's perfectly steamed. So good. Proud of myself. So the dumpling in Algeria is called the borek. It's mostly based on a dough but I like to just do it more like a ravioli which is kind of similar as a dumpling. We use the very thin semolina with some olive oil. The olive oil will help stretch the dough easily. Warm water with the semolina make it a quick dough. So this filling is already cooked. I use ground lamb and I added cumin, salt, pepper. We boil some egg and add it on with also some potato and parsley and coriander. That's the traditional borek filling. So I'm going to use that food to lay out the dough. I'm using water to stretch the dough a little bit more and and then I close it with the forks. We are now ready to fry our beautiful dumpling. Low medium high. Add some olive oil. Those cuties. To the pot. It doesn't have to be so hot. It's meant to be crispy. We don't want this to overcook. I'm adding the chicken broth to have a little bit of more taste into the dough. Okay so we are ready to serve our dumplings. So adding some harissa mayo. Harissa is a spicy red pepper that we make in-house. Very common in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco. We garnish with parsley, cilantro. Dip the dumpling into the harissa mayo. So good. The truth is the French people don't really do dumplings. The closest one that you can find it's ravioli de royaume. It's a tiny pasta that's stuffed with country cheese and parsley. They're very delicious. I'm going to show you how I make my versions of those real ravioli. At home we usually buy them frozen. We separate them like this and we're going to cook them as a traditional pasta. Start them in a salty boiling water. We're going to reduce our chicken stock while they're cooking. French love their chicken stock to make things better. To make it a little bit more interesting we're going to add the black pepper. So now that my dumplings are raised I can remove them. We're going to add butter directly. A little sea salt. Black pepper. I'm just going to finish it with a little chive. The chive makes everything taste better. And voila. Beautiful balance between the cheese inside and the butter and the truffle. Amazing. There are so many dumplings in Korea. The most classic, the most traditional one I believe is a gogimandu which is a meat dumpling. It packs all the flavor, all the punch. It tastes clean. I think it's one of my favorites. I love making this steamed dumpling. Vegetable ingredients first. This one is Korean chives. It's called buchu. And this one is just a leek. I just cook it until it's a little tender. Cabbage has quickly been blanched. Tofu, also squeezed out until it's like the soul of the ingredients. Bean sprout, this also has been blanched and then just squeezed. Minced garlic. A little bit of ginger. And then pork gelatin. Took me two, three days to make it. I just boil with the pork neck bones, pork leg bones, and pork feet. And then yeonduk which is like a Korean soy essence. Flavor bomb you can think. Black pepper and then soy sauce. These vegetables are to create that crunch texture to it as you eat it. Cooking beforehand these vegetables, you don't want to cook it too long otherwise it becomes a little too mushy. This pork is mostly pork shoulder. I think pork shoulder has a very good fat to meat ratio. I like to keep flavor inside rather too dry. This is a dumpling wrap that I got from the store. Make sure you get a good chunk of filling inside here. If you don't put much in it, it's gonna just taste like a flour and dough. And you don't want that. You want a lot of flavors. Water around it, kind of thinking it's like you're putting a glue around it. When you're folding it, make sure you get all the air out and make sure all this filling gets spread out evenly. Add another glue to it to the edge of the skin and then make it into circular shape. And that's how you make Korean dumpling before you steam it. The water is hot. I'm gonna put the steamer inside. Trap the steam and then once it traps, I'm gonna put the dumpling in there and I'm gonna start cooking. This is just a pad so the dumpling doesn't get stuck. Steam it for about 10 minutes and it should be ready. In restaurants, people actually serve the dumplings in a basket and I'm gonna just eat it the way it is. And this is a soy sauce and a vinegar and once that's stuck, yep, that packs all the flavors, juice. Wow, the flavor is, well, it's very delicious. These are the best dumplings in the world. Delicious. You have to try it. This is my favorite order. Well, you guys want to try or not? Watching a six foot five guy folding the tiniest dumplings in the world.