So Many Dumplings: Turkey and scallion & Shiitake and Bamboo Shoots

The first course of the Asian-Inspired Dinner Party meal for 8 was a whole lot of dumplings:

Turkey and Scallion Dumplings
2 lbs ground turkey
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tbsp green onions, chopped
2 tbsp sake

Shiitake and Bamboo Shoot Dumplings
2 cups, shiitake mushrooms, diced
2 small cans bamboo shoots, drained and diced
1 tbsp green onions, diced
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted and ground

These work the same way. Combine all the dumplings ingredients in no particular order, stir well, and let the mixture marinate in the fridge, covered, for at least 5 hours (make them in the morning and cook them at dinner, or prepare the mixture the night before). You can also the marinating and the turkey dumplings just won’t be quite as tender. The shiitake ones won’t really suffer. Oh, bamboo shoots might be tricky to find in smaller grocery stores, but big chain ones and those specializing in Asian products will definitely have them.

Dumplings Wrappers
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cold water (approximately)
1/4 tsp salt

Seriously, there are only three ingredients in dumplings wrappers. For this reason I find it ridiculous to buy pre-made wrappers. The labour involved, however, is a lot, so I’m understanding of those who choose to not make their own.This took me about 3 hours total time at different periods throughout the day to make. It was worth it, but I had a rare excess of time on my hands.

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl and then pour in the water. Stir to just combine the dough and form it into a ball. You may need more water, or you may need more flour if the ball is too sticky. It shouldn’t stick to your hands or the bowl. Don’t knead the dough now and don’t over-mix it. Place the ball in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for 30 minutes. It doesn’t rise like bread, so you don’t need a warm place, but you do need a draft-free place. After 30 minutes take the ball and knead it for 5 minutes, or until the ball is like elastic.

Well, my ball was sticky and needed (kneaded?) more flour, but after 30 seconds elastic-y so I wondered if 5 minutes would have been excessive. I tore the dough into 4 balls, and then tore one of those balls into large gumball-sized balls (like the ones you put a quarter into the machine to get and all the balls are different colours and you have to turn the handle and one comes out but you really wanted the blue one because it tastes like…well, nothing real, but something delicious…but you got the pink one instead so you tried to pawn it off on your sibling to get a second chance at the blue-flavoured ball. Or maybe that was just in my family. Anyway, about that size).

Now you need to roll the individual gumballs out so they’re really thin. Use a rolling pin (or wine bottle or olive oil bottle…) coated in a lot of flour and toss a lot of flour on a clean counter. I needed to knead more flour into each little ball because they were too sticky. I guess I hadn’t kneaded long enough initially after all. They shouldn’t stick to the rolling pin and they shouldn’t stick to the counter. Roll them out into circles and as you roll, rotate the dough on the counter to make sure they don’t stick to it. Having to scrape them off the counter like cookies does not result in good wrappers.

When they’re very thin (you can make them as thick as you want, but the skin will be more appealing and tender if they’re thinner, in my opinion) coat them in flour and place them on a plate covered in a towel. You don’t want them to dry out and you don’t want them to stick to one another. I rolled out about 80 wrappers and thought I’d floured them enough, only to discover an hour later that some had decided to stick together. Fortunately I hadn’t stacked them all directly on top of each other, being scared that this would happen. Instead I’d scattered them around a few large plates, so they mostly could be peeled apart when I tried to pick them up. I could kind of wedge my fingers between them, but if they’d been one on top of the other my entire afternoon’s worth of dough rolling would have been for naught. Some weren’t salvageable as it was, but I still ended p with just enough wrappers for all my fillings. I would have broken down and cried, probably, if the whole stack had turned into a mis-shapen glob-like hill of failure. It would have wrecked the dumpling course of the meal and would, more importantly, have been very unattractive, what with me crying on the floor. If this had happened (the dumplings having no wrappers, not the crying bit) my fall-back plan was the turn them into meatballs and just brown them in a frying pan and then bake them, which would have worked for the turkey but the mushrooms would have been a disaster. So, please remember to add a good layer of flour to each wrapper after you’ve rolled it out. On both sides, the flour. I couldn’t bear to cause you any dumpling wrapper-related tears by inadequately warning you of impending disaster.

Okay, so now you’ve rolled out all your dough and you’re tired, but your wrappers are happily floured and piled randomly around a few plates covered in kitchen towels. Take one wrapper at a time and dip your index finger into a small cup of warm water. Trace the outline of the wrapper with your finger to wet it. Now fill the wrapper with about a teaspoon (or 2 if the wrapper is large. My gumballs of dough were not as uniform as the ones in the gumball machines…so some were small and some were larger, whic makes for uneven steaming) of either the mushroom or turkey filling. Then bring all the edges of the circular wrapper together and try to twist the top to seal it. If you’ve over-filled the wrapper it may not want to close. Also, the mushroom dumplings are pretty liquidy and like to spill, so you may need to kind of drain your spoonfuls against the side of the bowl of filling before adding it to the dough. The nice thing about rolling the dough is you can make the wrappers thinner at the edges (it usually just happens on its own, but you can do it intentionally) so that the twisted part at the top isn’t too thick and doesn’t turn into a glob of paste-y steamed dough after cooking. It can get kind of dense and unappetizing, so the thinner and smaller the twisted top of the dumpling is, the better.

To steam the dumplings (hurray! You’re on the home stretch!) line a steamer basket with lettuce or cabbage leaves (large ones are better so they don’t stick to the individual dumplings) and place the dumplings in them so they’re not touching. If they touch they’ll stick together when you try to remove them from the steamer. Set a large pot filled with a bit of water (not so high in the pot that it will touch the bottom of the steamer apparatus) on high heat and when it comes to a boil add the steamer insert with the first batch of dumplings. Lower the heat a little and steam for about 7-8 minutes, or until the inside of a turkey dumpling is no longer pink. You’ll have to cut it open to check, but you can call it quality control. I did this with two pots steaming simultaneously. Traditionally a steamer basket would have multiple levels so you can steam more than one layer of dumplings at a time. Unfortunately, my steamer is not bamboo and doesn’t tier, and my methods are not so traditional. They are also, therefore, more time consuming, but all the dumplings don’t come out at once, which means, joyfully, that by the time you want to refill your plate with more dumplings there will be a fresh, hot batch waiting for you. Actually, if you do this with a traditional steamer you can recover the dumplings in the steamer until you want more. This is still less fuss. Traditions are traditions for a reason, I suppose. Years of evolution have led to tiered steamer baskets and the world is a happier place everywhere but in my kitchen.

Serve the dumplings with small dishes, cups or ramekins of (1) hot sauce, like the Guizhou Chile Paste, (2) soy sauce (or tamari) and (3) a sticky sweet sweet sauce, like hoisin. You can use or make a sweet soy sauce, or a black vinegar, or a soy-vinegar, and the sweet could also be oyster sauce. Different Asian restaurants will have different options on the table, so it’s up to you what you want to serve even if you’re going for authenticity. In fact, a lot of places just put a store-bought bottle of sauce straight on the table and don’t even remove the lable. So that’s fine too for a casual meal at home. Then diners can pour a little of their desired sauces onto their plate and mix them as they see fit. Let them take their own dumplings one by one from the plate or steamer basket on the table. This should be communal food, not “here is your allocation of dumplings” food, where you place a portion in front of each diner. Placing a whole plate of freshly-steamed dumplings on a table is quite a presentation, even if you need to take the steamer baskets back to the kitchen to start the next batch.

Next up, Miso-Marinated Cod with sake, mirin and lychee…