It’s Labor Day weekend. I love long weekends because it means more time to do my favorite activities. My favorite activities usually include spending hours testing new recipes in the kitchen. Labor Day weekend is especially awesome because it marks the transition into fall season, start of college football, and indulging in my favorite spices and comfort foods. Some of my favorite fall spices include cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger – mainly the spices in pumpkin spice. Sunday mornings typically mean squeezing in time at the gym, but today, I had a sudden urge to make rainbow vegetable dumplings instead. The greatest part about the long weekend is if I don’t get to the gym today, I still have tomorrow. It’s been a while since I made dumplings. I save making dumplings for long weekends because it is definitely a process and requires some patience in the kitchen. I grew up eating mostly pork potstickers, but lately, I’ve been obsessively testing out vegan recipes in the kitchen. One of my experiments evolved into a delightful creation of rainbow vegetable dumplings. The base of my rainbow vegetable dumplings is made with thinly sliced red cabbage, shredded carrots, sliced scallions, minced ginger, and minced garlic. The filling is cooked down with some kosher salt and a simple sauce of sesame oil, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, confectioners’ sugar, cornstarch, and white pepper powder before being filled in homemade dumpling skins. Once all of the ingredients are prepared, and the dough has rested, I prepare a small bowl filled with water, and another small bowl filled with flour. I set out all of these bowls in an assembly line to start assembling my dumplings. I started with the filling, then the wrapping, and finally the cooking. The prepping and cooking process can take some time, but the end result is worth the patience. When the dumplings were done, I waited about ten minutes before I dug in. If I dug in right away, I would have easily burned my mouth. The dumpling skin was crispy at the bottom and chewy throughout. The dumpling filling was packed with flavor. Kevin helped set up the table as he anxiously waited for the dumplings. The dumplings were so good, we devoured half of them almost immediately. We did end up packing the rest to save for two additional meals during the week. As we were eating, we caught up on some of the highlights from college football games the evening before. We had stayed home the evening before to watch Michigan’s first game of the 2019 season. Although we were a bit nervous for Michigan at first, Michigan pulled through with a win. All in all, after the first game of the season, we are excited to watch the upcoming games throughout the season.
For the rainbow vegetable dumplings:
For the dumpling wrappers:
· 2¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus additional flour for kneading the dough
· ½ teaspoon kosher salt
· 1 cup lukewarm water
For the vegetable filling:
· 5 cloves garlic, finely minced
· 1 inch knob of ginger, minced
· 5 stalks scallions, finely sliced, plus additional thinly sliced stalk of scallion for garnishing
· ¼ red cabbage, thinly sliced
· 3 carrots, peeled and grated
· 1 teaspoon kosher salt
· ½ teaspoon sesame oil
· 2 teaspoons Shaoxing wine
· 2 teaspoons soy sauce
· 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
· 2 teaspoons cornstarch slurry (1 teaspoon cornstarch mixed with 1 teaspoon water)
· Dash of white pepper
· 4 tablespoons of vegetable or canola oil, for frying
· 1 cup water, for steaming
For the dipping sauce:
· 3 tablespoons soy sauce
· ½ tablespoon rice wine vinegar
· ½ tablespoon Chinkiang vinegar
Directions:
1) On a large baking sheet, sprinkle on some all-purpose flour. Set aside.
2) To make the dough, combine the 2 cups of flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the lukewarm water to the mixture. Use your hands to thoroughly mix the dough. The dough will be sticky at this point. Gradually add the remaining ¾ cup flour slowly into the bowl as you continue kneading the dough for about 3-5 minutes. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes. While the dough is resting, you can start making the filling.
3) To make the filling, combine the minced garlic, minced ginger, sliced scallions, slice cabbage, and grated carrots in a large bowl. Heat a stove on medium heat. Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Once hot, add the filling and kosher salt into the skillet. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the filling begins to soften. Pour in the sesame oil, Shaoxing wine, soy sauce, confectioners' sugar, and white pepper.
4) When the resting time for the dough is up, stretch the dough out into a rectangular shape. Cut the dough into three logs and cut each log into about ½ inch pieces. To make the dumplings, prepare a small bowl of water and small bowl of flour. Sprinkle a small bit of flour onto a surface and begin rolling out the pieces of dough into a circle one by one onto a floured surface. Place ½ tablespoon of filling on each piece of dough. Use your pointer finger to dip into the bowl of water and add some water on half of the circle of the dough wrapper. Bring the dry edge up to the moistened edge of the circle and pinch close at the middle. Beginning on one end, press or pleat the dough until you form 2-3 pleats. Repeat on the other side. Press the edges to seal the dumplings. Continue this process with the rest of the dumplings.
5) Place the pieces of dumplings on the floured baking sheet until ready to fry.
6) Heat a deep skillet on medium heat. Add a tablespoon of vegetable or canola oil into the pan. Once the oil is hot, add 7-10 dumplings into the pan and fry for about 1-2 minutes, until golden brown. Pour about 3-4 tablespoons of water into to the skillet. Use a pot cover to cover the skillet for about 2-3 minutes until the water is evaporated. Remove dumplings to a plate and let dumplings rest before serving. Continue the process of frying dumplings until all dumplings are fried. Garnish the dumplings with half of the additional thinly sliced stalk of scallion.
7) To make the dipping sauce, combine soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and Chinkiang vinegar in a small bowl. Garnish with the other half of the additional thinly sliced stalk of scallion.
Takeaways: The recipe yields about 27-29 dumplings. I did have some remaining filling left, so I ate the filling separately. You can always double the dough recipe if you want to make even more dumplings.