Dumpling Atlas · Main
Jiaozi, Pork and Napa Cabbage
- Intermediate
- 70 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with toasted, nutty warmth throughout, aromatics blooming from the first bite, finishing long and savory.
Ingredients
- 300g plain flour, plus more for dusting
- 155g cold water
- 4g fine salt, for the dough
- 400g pork shoulder, 20% fat, hand chopped or coarse minced
- 300g napa cabbage, finely chopped
- 6g salt, for the cabbage
- 40g spring onion, finely sliced
- 15g ginger, grated
- 20g light soy sauce
- 15g Shaoxing wine
- 10g toasted sesame oil
- 1g ground white pepper
- 80g cold chicken stock
- Chinkiang vinegar and chilli oil, to dip
Equipment
Rolling pin · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Pleating dumplingsKneading doughSalted water & the float testChilling to firm: the fridge as binderThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · soy · sesame · alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Stir the 4g salt into the cold water, pour it into the flour and work to a stiff shaggy mass. Knead 6 minutes until smooth and slow to spring back, then cover and rest 40 minutes: it should give like an earlobe, not like putty. 6 min
- Toss the cabbage with its 6g salt, leave 15 minutes, then wring it in a cloth until no more water runs. Make it weep now or it weeps inside the wrapper. 15 min
- Beat the cold stock into the pork in three additions until the meat is sticky and holds a ridge, then fold in cabbage, spring onion, ginger, soy, wine, sesame oil and pepper. Chill 30 minutes. 30 min
- Roll the dough into 2cm ropes, cut 10g pieces, and roll each to an 8cm round thick at the centre and thin at the rim. Fill with 15g, pleat one side only against the flat far side, and press the seam shut with dry fingers.
- Boil in plenty of water, adding a cup of cold water each time it returns to a hard boil, three times over. They are ready when the skins go glossy and taut and a dumpling rides high and firm.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Pleating dumplings 8 recipes
- The seam is closed along its whole length with no gap at either end of the pleat run: hold one up to the light and no filling shows through the join. A dumpling that opens in the water was sealed against a wet or floured rim.
- The rim is clean and dry where it meets itself. Filling smeared onto the sealing edge is the single most common cause of a burst, and it cannot be wiped off once the dough has taken it up.
- The pleats are even in size and count across the batch, so every piece holds the same weight of filling and cooks in the same time. A tray that ranges from eight folds to eighteen will not finish together.
- The wrapper is thicker at the centre than at the rim, so the base carries the filling without tearing while the pleated edge stays fine enough to eat. A disc rolled evenly flat splits at the bottom.
- It stands up on its own base without slumping, and the pleats still read as pleats after cooking rather than having relaxed into a smooth seam.
Where it goes wrong The rim was wet, floured or smeared with filling, so the seal never took: the dumpling opens in the pot, the filling leaves, and what surfaces is a slack empty wrapper in cloudy water. Uneven pleat counts across a tray compound it, because the batch stops finishing at the same moment.
Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes
- It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
- It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
- It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
- The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
- It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.
Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Riesling or Grenache
- Also Right
- Cru Beaujolais
- From the Taps
- Farmhouse saison
- Zero-Proof
- Cloudy apple juice, chilled
Pork loves fruit and gentle sweetness: orchard-note whites and low-tannin reds flatter it where heavy oak flattens.
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