Chicken Dumplings

These pan-fried dumplings (or potstickers or momos) have a juicy umami packed chicken filling enclosed in a slightly crispy wrapper.

Get your friends and family together and cook up a batch. Making them at home means you’ll get to enjoy them warm, straight off the stove.

Makes: 20

Ingredients:

For the dough

• ¾ cup flour
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. oil
• ¼ cup +1 tbsp. warm water

For the filling

• 200g minced chicken
• 1 medium onion chopped (½ cup)
• ¾ tsp. ginger chopped
• 1 ½ tsp. garlic chopped (2 cloves)
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 3 green chilies chopped
• 1 tbsp. light soy sauce
• ½ tsp. lime juice
• 2 tsp. butter
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup thinly sliced green onion
• ¼ cup coriander leaves (roughly shredded)

For pan frying

• 2 tsp. vegetable oil
• ¼ cup water

For the dipping sauce

• 2 small cloves garlic, minced
• 1 green chilli chopped
• 3 tbsp. light soy sauce
• ½ tsp. lime juice
• 1 tbsp. hot water
• ½ tsp. toasted sesame seeds

Instructions:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl, add salt, mix and then make a hole in the middle of the flour. Pour the oil into the hole along with a little bit of water (around 1tbsp.) and mix with a spoon. Gradually add water and keep mixing until the dough separates from the sides of the bowl.
2. Knead the dough with your hands until soft (this will take around 3 to 4 minutes), then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it aside to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes (you can start prepping the filling while the dough rests).
3. Once rested, divide the dough in two portions. Take one portion and shape it into a long roll, and make ten 1-inch balls with it. Repeat with the remaining portion of the dough. When done you should have 20 balls in total.
4. Using a rolling pin, stretch each ball into a 3 ½ -inch disc and set it aside on a clean plate. Repeat until you run out of dough balls (you can sieve some flour on top of the discs when arranging on the plate to stop them from sticking to each other).
5. Add all the ingredients for the filling except for the green onions and coriander to a blender. Blend everything for about 45 seconds on medium or until well combined. (If you don’t have minced chicken, use boneless chicken; just add it to the blender after dicing and run the blender for around 30 seconds or until minced.
6. Pour the contents of the blender into a bowl and add the green onion and coriander leaves. Mix until combined.
7. Take one dough disk and place 1 tbsp. of filling in the centre.
8. Bring the edges of the dough together at the centre and twist and pinch to seal them. Then gently place on a clean plate. You can watch this video to see how we did it. Repeat until you run out of dough disks and filling.
9. Place a large, non-stick pan with a lid over medium-high heat and add the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, place the first batch of dumplings in (we cooked ours in 3 batches).
10. Cook, uncovered, until the bottoms are brown. For us this took about 4 minutes. Then lower the heat to medium-low, carefully pour in ¼ cup water, and immediately cover the pan with a lid.
11. Cook until the dumplings are cooked through (about 10-12 minutes).
12. Then remove the lid and flip the dumpling and cook for 1 minute or until the side now on the bottom develops a slight brownish colour.
13. Remove the dumplings onto a plate.
14. Repeat steps 9 to 12 until you run out of uncooked dumplings.
15. To make the dipping sauce, add the chopped green chili, garlic, lime juice and toasted sesame seeds to small bowl. Then add light soy sauce and hot water and stir to mix.