I love Sunday dinner. I think it comes from being raised in a large family that got together many Sunday's for huge dinners, tons of hollering children and lots of food. While I don't spend my Sunday's with that many people any more, I almost always make Sunday dinner. I cook every meal but, Sunday dinner cooking is always more ambitious, creative, elaborate and relaxing than weeknight dinner. Yesterday, my friend Sara came over and I made soup dumplings. They were amazing. I want to only eat all my food from here on out in bite size parcels held together by a dumpling shell. And, they were much easier than I had anticipated!
I slightly modified this recipe. You'll notice, they are soup dumplings without the soup...I didn't plan far enough in advance to make the gelatin for the soup...next time! And, these were so so good that it almost didn't matter.
FOR THE FILLING:
3/4 pound ground pork
about 2 tsp fresh grated ginger (use a super fine grater)
3 cloves garlic, chopped small (use more if you want)
3 scallions, chopped small (i use the whole thing...green and white parts)
1 tsp sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. mirin
1/2 tsp. sesame oil
3/4 tsp. salt
Mix together until everything is evenly combined. Using wonton wrappers (I used square Nasoya wrappers), place about a walnut size scoop inside the wrapper, dip your finger in a bowl of water and run it along the edges of the wrapper the pleat the wrapper closed until you have a tiny little parcel.
I made all of the dumplings ahead of time, lining them up on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. This made about 40 dumplings.
TO STEAM THE DUMPLINGS:
Use a bamboo steamer or a steamer basket (I used a silicone one) lined with a layer of cabbage leaves. Bring your water to a boil then arrange one layer of dumplings, not letting the sides of each dumpling touch or they'll stick together. Steam for 12 minutes. Serve with soy sauce or a soy, ginger, scallion, mirin combination.
Enjoy!
