My Steamed Pork Dumplings with Sweet Soy Dipping Sauce Recipe

How to make it

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• Combine the all dumpling ingredients except the wrappers. I use a triple-decker bamboo steamer, and I line it with lettuce leaves to keep the dumplings from sticking. This recipe fills up all three levels of my steamer. To assemble the dumplings, first designate one hand as the meat hand and one hand as the everything else hand. This will prevent you from creating a big pork dumpling filling mess all over everything! Also set a small bowl of water where you can reach it easily with your “everything else” hand. With your “everything else” hand, place one gyoza wrapper on a work surface. Take a very small pinch of pork mixture with your meat hand – I think about 2 teaspoons, but I’ve never measured it. Place the pork mixture in the middle of the wrapper. If you haven’t decided yet, now is the time when you must decide if you are making an open-top, cup-type dumpling, or a half-circle folded-over type dumpling. I find the cup-type dumpling more attractive, and the folded-over type faster and easier to form. If you want cup-type dumplings, fold the excess wrapper up to roughly begin your cup. Take your everything else hand and dip one finger into your handy bowl of water. Run your moistened finger around the outside edge of your wrapper. Then, also with your everything else hand, begin working around the edge of the wrapper, pinching little pieces together in outward facing pleats (and folding the pleats over) so that the wrapper forms a cup that’s basically round and that fits the dollop of pork mixture that’s exposed in the middle of your cup. For folded-over dumplings, take one finger on your everything else hand and dip it in the same handy bowl of water. Run that moistened finger around the edge of your wrapper and then fold one half over the pork filling and all the way over to meet the other side of the wrapper. Use a finger or fingers from your everything else hand to pinch the edges together well. If you come out even at the end – the last bit of pork filling going into the last gyoza wrapper, have a quiet little kitchen celebration for yourself. I have a skillet that is exactly the right size for my bamboo steamer to sit on top of, so it’s not down in the water. I put about 1 ½” of water in the bottom of that skillet and bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiling, I put my dumpling-loaded steamer on top of the skillet and set the timer for 18 minutes.
• While my dumplings are cooking, I combine the dipping sauce ingredients. I make no claim of Asian authenticity to my dipping sauce recipe, but I really enjoy the flavors!
• Variation 1: Substitute 1 pound firm tofu for the pork, add another egg and add another grated carrot.
• Variation 2: Substitute 1 pound turkey sausage for the pork sausage. Low fat and quite tasty!
• I absolutely love these dumplings served with my Chinese Asparagus recipe and some basmati rice!