The key to great dumplings
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Northern style Dumplings! In this video we wanted to show you how to sort dumplings, from scratch, including the wrappers (one …
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IMPORTANT NOTE: Before we get into it, I know that “hydration” isn’t a term that everyone knows – and I forgot to scribble down the flour/water quantities in the video itself. If using King Arthur flour, use 300 grams of flour and 156 grams of water. 00 Flour – 300 grams of flour, 150 grams of water.
But right, as promised in the outro, a few thoughts on our previous work looking back. Originally, we were thinking of making a whole “Can you trust CCD?” video, but the more we put pen to paper, the more naval gazey the whole project ended up feeling. After all, this’s a cooking channel – most people just want a tasty recipe in the end.
So, recipe notes will be after the five year anniversary naval gazing:
1. Sometimes I like to say that there’s always a little Dunning-Kreuger at play whenever anyone starts a YouTube thing, but that partially might just be my projecting. Looking back, it’s kind of shocking that we had the confidence to share recipes, but then again we didn’t know how much that we didn’t know.
2. And yet, in spite of that, when we go back and analyze the recipes themselves, they’re… generally reasonably decent. I suppose in us-five-years-ago’s defense, we did always really really try to get things right, to share the dish as we felt it should be… which seemed to end up compensating for a lot of sins. I suppose it’s less in recipes and more in the “extra commentary” that I can kind of cringe at myself in that first year. To be a bit more concrete – in our Char Siu sauce recipe I used mianchi (ground bean paste) and Lo Shui (master stock) as the base of the sauce, which is a legit older method to make a very legit Char Siu sauce. The recipe itself is quite solid. But in the process, I also kind of ragged on Hoisin based Char Siu sauces, which are obviously also a proper approach as well. I just didn’t know it at the time.
3. But it’s a truism the more you learn about food and cooking, I think. When you get started, you start to learn some recipes and techniques that work, and you… religiously stick to them (or at least I did) – leading to a belief system centered around the idea that there’s one and only one ‘correct’ way to cook a dish. But as the years pass, you start to see that each ‘dish’ is really a constellation of different variations on a theme – and it’s those variants, those nooks and crannies, that’re some of the most fascinating.
4. In the middle of year two, there was another important change in the channel – I (Chris) stopped researching. Originally, when me and Steph switched back and forth with the cooking, when it was one of our ‘turns’, we’d do everything – research, testing, etc etc. Back then, when it was my turn to research, usually what I’d do is go hang out in the wholesale market and ask vendors how they’d cook XYZ. Cross reference that with a bunch of random recipes and recipe videos, cook it a few times, call it a day. It… wasn’t enough.
5. Why? There is simply no substitute for reading WIDELY. I’ve lived over here in China for over a decade – I can get by in Chinese – but I’ve never really been one of those ‘language guys’: my reading ability only really allows for narrow reading. So I can putz around, make a few searches, read some douban threads, and article here or there… but Steph – being a native speaker and all – can quickly consume entire books and magazines. This gives you a much, much better sense of the bigger picture.
6. The wider the knowledge base, the more you can cross reference – the more you can contextualize what someone local to a certain place might tell you about a certain dish. Let me give you an example. When we did our old Beijing Zhajiangmian video, I showed the final video to a buddy of mine from Beijing and he quickly retorted that it was ‘wrong’ because it didn’t have ‘enough toppings’, as when you got to a Zhajiangmian restaurant in Beijing the noodles are loaded with a veritable smorgasbord. So for a while, I had this nagging feeling that maybe our Zhajiangmian video just wasn’t quite right, that maybe we should toss a disclaimer on it… to which Steph would always say “trust me, the research was good”. It wasn’t until Laofangu dropped a homestyle Zhajiangmian video (which had similar toppings as ours) that my nerves were calmed. As it turns out, my friend’s family never really made Zhajiangmian at home, so his view was always colored by what he ate at restaurants.
7. That said, I think you should always, always take criticism from someone local to somewhere seriously because (1) you can always fuck up, and you can learn from that and (2) even if you didn’t fuck up and you just didn’t know the context, you can learn from that too. Let me give you another example. Two more videos that we were worried about were our Guizhou Laziji (spicy chicken) video and our Guizhou ciba (pounded chili paste) video, as our friends from Guiyang told us that neither was how it was done by their family. As it turns out, the Laziji that we did (where we added water to the braise) was a specific variant from Qinglong, and the ciba chili paste that we made was a more modern restaurant-focused variation that’s designed to be ready-used for stir fries. We never would have learned those things if we’d have just brushed aside those concerns.
8. That’s why – in spite of all the voices out there these days that are vociferously arguing against the notion of authenticity, in spite of what I just said above regarding dishes being constellations of ideas instead of platonic ideals – we still can’t hop aboard that ‘authenticity be damned’ train. It’s all too easy to use a critique of authenticity as a shield against your own shortcomings, your own gaps of knowledge.
Anyway, enough of that. Now for what you’re actually here for, some dumpling notes:
1. Another very legit method for making dumpling wrappers is to roll it out (often by passing it through a pasta maker) and using a glass to cut our the wrappers. We personally prefer the rolling method, but if you’re making a significant number of wrappers, the cutting method would definitely be a nice idea.
2. The hot water dough method you can see quite a bit around Jiangsu/Zhejiang. It’s is often used for making steamed dumplings, as it’s softer and the cold water wrappers can sometimes be at risk of drying out when steaming.
3. The oil quantity in the dumpling filling may seem less than some other recipes – this is because for the basic recipe in the video I was using uncooked peanut oil, and if using uncooked oil I personally prefer to go easier on the oil quantity. If using the seasoned oil that I mentioned in the description box, I’d up the oil quantity for ~1/4 cup. Or alternatively, feel free to add more oil according to your own tastes.
4. For more fillings, you can definitely check out our previous dumpling video. They’re definitely solid, though I was a bit overly paranoid on the hand-mincing/stirring front. Just… please forget anything we said about the wrapper.
Ok, that’s it for now. Apologies for the lack of videos recently, things are a little crazy with the upcoming move. We’ll be releasing one more video here in China (likely one week from today, before Dragon Boat Festival), then June 8th we’ll be moving down to Bangkok. Realistically, our next video after that likely won’t be until 6/27, though we’ll try to aim for 6/20.
Can I use these wrappers too for gyouza or pot stickers? Thanks…
can you guys do a video on the history of how bok choy became so popular around china?
Pretty kitty!
This is one of the. most helpful videos ever! I want to make my own dumpling wrappers, but have not been happy with the recipes I have seen. Thank you so very much, especially for the flour suggestions. Being in the USA, both your recommendations are available.
I am Italian, so it's no problem for me to get Italian 00 flour 😂
Chinese Food Demystified: Uses Chinese word to describe essence of dumpling skin as tanya and Kyukyu
2:45 "internationally available options", and goes on to mention 3 options in America only (I presume). Sigh. I guess the other 194 countries, and 95% of the people in the world just aren't important enough for you to qualify as "international"?
так это пельмени
u are NileRed for chinese food
Hi kitty!! <3
Why have I never noticed the cat, I'm shocked! Keep up the good work, love you guys 🙂
Two requests if I could would be wor wonton soup in the thickened stock style w/o noodles and home style family bean curd stir fry shanhaineese with egg plant bell peppers(Capricum)and pork slivers. Idk if that is an an americanized Chinese dish but it's something I deeply enjoy if there is a traditional Chinese equivalent I'd be so excited to learn!!
The way you say grocer is so funny, u've gone native my boi
Brother open in New Delhi India i will Do it
cat
It makes sense because a dumpling is a sandwich.
These are my favourite style of dumplings. Thank you so much for sharing. I can't wait to try making them! 😀
Why is the "Hush" blurred? 0:23
LOL, the 00 tipo flour is the shittiest flour you can by in Italy
Thank you guys !!!
that statement about sandwiches: the bread matters! I didn't realize how much until I had a reuben… served on white sandwich bread. Good pastrami, everything was right… white Japanese sandwich bread. A tragedy
Please realise that your audience extends beyond the USA. Bob's Red Mill, King Arthur AP and Gold Medal are not available in the UK, Australia, New Zealand.
And many countries that may want to know the best way, beyond buying frozen, dumpling wrappers.
OMG! What kinda cat do you have? 😻 It is gorgeous 😍
Just WHAT is on that sandwich, that it's blurred out @0:23 ???
Would you ever toast the peppercorns before infusing them with the ginger?
Collab with Mark Wiens?
Thank you as always for showing us how to make these delicious foods
It's a fussy prospect, but something I have done in the past is supplement AP flour with gluten flour to up the protein content. It's not necessarily cheaper ounce by ounce, but it saves you from having to buy bread flour/pizza flour AND AP flour.
I absolutely love dumplings, so now I want to make more! Any tips on accompaniments for northern style dumplings? I usual add a little bit of chilli oil to some black rice vinegar which is delicious, but I am interested if there is anything else commonly used.
I want to make dumplings and freeze a bunch because I really only have time for long cooking projects on the weekend. If I plan to freeze these should I do anything different? Also, should I freeze them before or after boiling them?
If I remember right, when I made pizza dough, that pockmarked texture meant that the dough was overworked. Still works fine once you let it rest and let the gluten relax