I did it well this time. The last time I tried making pan-fried dumpling, otherwise known as ‘guo tie’ (or 锅贴 in Mandarin) (The Guo Tie: Chinese Pan-Fried Dumpling Experiment) was more than 2 years ago. It wasn’t inedible, but the skin was a tad too thick and chewy and the filling a bit dry and I was quite disappointed with the overall result and taste.
This time round, I decided to stick to the most basic method of making the dough wrapper with just plain flour, salt and water; for the meat filling, I went back to using similar ingredients as my Shui Jian Bao recipe too, with minced pork and chives as the key ingredients. The result was great – the skin was thin and soft and the filling was juicy and sweet. Yummy! 😆
Ingredients:
- Minced pork: 450g
- Salt: 1.5 tsp
- Sugar: 1 tsp
- Ground white pepper: 1 tsp
- Rice wine: 2 tbsp
- Sesame oil: 2 tbsp
- Water: 2 tbsp
- Corn starch: 1 tbsp
- Ginger: 1 thumb length, chopped finely
- Garlic chives: 1 handful, chopped to fill up 1 cup
- Salt: 1 tsp
- Lukewarm water: 2/3 cup or less
- Plain flour: 2 cups
- Oil: 2 tbsp
- Water mixture: 1/4 cup water + 1 tsp plain flour + 1 tsp white vinegar
Method:
- Marinate pork with salt, sugar, pepper, rice wine, sesame oil and water.
- Coat with corn starch.
- Mix in ginger and chives. Leave to marinate in fridge for 1 hr.
- Add salt and water to flour. Mix to form a dough, then knead for 10 min till smooth.
- Leave covered with a wet towel for 20 min. Then knead for another 5 min.
- Cut into half and roll each half into a cylindrical roll. Leave 1 roll covered in wet towel.
- Slice the other roll into 12 pieces. Press each piece flat using palm.
- Roll out flat and cut into round shaped wrappers using a large round cutter.
- Remove pork filling from fridge. Place 1 tbsp filling onto each wrapper.
- Fold up wrapper to form a semi-circle. Pinch the center tightly. Fold in right side of wrapper 3 times and pinch tight. Repeat the same on the left side.
- Repeat for the rest of the wrappers and filling.
- Add oil to pan. Place dumplings folded sides up onto pan.
- Pour water mixture into pan.
- Place lid on pan. Leave to steam on medium heat for about 8 min.
- Serve hot with black vinegar and ginger slices.
Tricks:
- Just like what I did with the Shui Jian Bao, I added a bit of plain flour into the water mixture for steam-frying the dumplings. It makes the pan-fried parts of the dumplings really crispy and delightful to bite into, especially when they are piping hot.
- If you are too lazy to pan-fry, you can easily cook these dumplings in boiling water too. Just leave to boil for a few minutes till they float up onto the surface and they are done.
Serving:
About 22 – 25 dumplings
salivating.
You must be hungry!
Or maybe I just caught Rabies.