Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Dumplings

I love Chinese style dumplings. My Chinese side of the family has a family cookbook with recipes that have been handed down through the generations. When my Polish father and my Mom got divorced that cookbook was just about the only thing my Dad asked for. Oddly, he is the one who taught me how to make these.

I decided to make these for a New Year's Eve party this year. They are very inexpensive to make and are always a big hit. They freeze well so I always make a ton of them.

2 lbs ground pork
2 bunches of scallions
1/2 cabbage (shredded)
2 tbs minced garlic
small piece of ginger, minced
2 packages of dumpling wrappers (we use Gyoza wrappers as they are thinner)
1 bottle of dumpling sauce (I like to add some hot dumpling sauce as well)
soy sauce
black pepper

I've also had great success with a shrimp, water chestnut and shitake mushroom mixture instead of the ground pork but you have to get good large shrimp since they taste better and I add more soy sauce to the mixture. Sometimes I add water chestnuts to the pork ones as well.

You combine your pork, cabbage, scallions, ginger, garlic, black pepper and a little soy sauce in a mixing bowl and mix them well.

It helps to have two people. One to portion out the amount of meat filing onto the wrappers and one or two to actually wrap the dumplings. You simply get a bowl of water and wet the outside edge of the wrapper to wrap the meat. Try to make sure they don't open back up.

Once you have them all wrapped heat some peanut or vegetable oil in a pan and hot it nice and hot. Olive oil tends to burn to easily in this process. Sometimes I use sesame oil and chili oil instead to add more flavor. You want to saute the dumplings in oil until they get a nice crispy brown side to them. Maybe 5 minutes per pan? You just need to check them. Then you add some water to the pan and cover it for a few more minutes until most of the water has been absorbed.
When reheating, they are best reheated in the oven covered. Enjoy!