I Bake For Attention: Chinese-Style Turkey Dumplings (Potstickers)

THESE ARE SO EASY. What a revelation. These are so great, simple, a little time consuming, but perfect for a weekend dinner when you have a little more time.

So, I won’t lie. I am not as fast at rolling and filling these as the people at my local dumpling joint. I could watch them make dumplings at lightning speed for hours. But I got it done. I watched a few videos for the rolling technique, but you really just have to get your hands on the dough and see what you can do.

Gorgeous little dumpling

A few things I learned - roll from the centre out, in one direction only, rotating the dough about a quarter turn after each (one) roll. This gets the most uniformly round dough circle.

Ta-da!

The good thing is, I’m going to let you into a secret.. They don’t need to be perfectly round! You can still fold them into a dumpling shape if you end up with a square, an oval, a rectangle, or something in between! I rolled about 25, and hand on heart, I probably rolled 3 proper circles (the ones I photographed!)

For better photos of how to fold the dumplings (and bonus dipping sauce recipe!), see this previous post (where I used pre-madewrappers). The homemade ones are SO MUCH easier to fold, though.

Makes 25 dumplings (for me, that's a two person for dinner serving)

Ingredients for the Wrappers

210g plain flour
Pinch salt
110ml boiling water

Ingredients for the filling

250g turkey mince
2 small carrots, grated
Half a red onion, diced small
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cm ginger, minced
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp mirin
A dash of fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper

Method

Begin with the dumpling wrappers.

Mix the flour and salt, and make a well in the middle. Pour in the water and mix with a spoon to allow it to cool down a bit.

Bring it together with your hands and kneed for a few minutes to come together into a smooth dough. Form it into a ball and allow to sit in the bowl, covered in cling film, for 15 minutes.

Kneed again for 2-3 minutes and then leave it for an hour in a warm area, covered as before.

About 45 minutes into the resting time, make the filling. Basically, just prepare the veggies and mix everything together in a bowl.

Rest the filling mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes.

When you’re ready to make the dough, begin by halving it and putting the other half back in the resting bowl to stay moist.

Roll it out to a sausage shape and divide into two again.

Divide each half sausage into 6-7 equal pieces.

On a floured board, roll out each piece to a thin circle about 8-10cm in diameter.

One of the round ones!

Wet the border with some lukewarm water to allow the dumpling edges to stick together.

Add about a tsp of filling.

Fold up the dumplings into gorgeous little crescents as below.

Pinch together the middle

And make 3-4 folds from the centre to the edge

Do the same on the other side, making sure you have a good seal right to the corner

Work quickly to ensure that the dough doesn’t dry out. I rolled out 6-7 at a time, then filled them all at once, then went back to roll out another 6-7.