How to make Chinese New Year dumplings

Dumplings are a traditional Chinese New Year dish. Here’s how you can make them at home.

In northern China, dumplings are a traditional part of the new year’s table. Families will typically gather on the night before Chinese New Year to wrap and cook dumplings. Their shape is said to resemble a gold ingot, symbolizing wealth and prosperity for the new year.

In this video, we had our video producer Hanley team up with baby Isaac to make dumplings for Chinese New Year. If you’d like to follow along, we have the recipe here:

Recipe

For the dough:

• 200 grams of all-purpose flour
• 110 milliliters of water
• A pinch salt

For the filling:

• 180 grams of ground pork
• 150 grams of shrimp paste
• 2 to 3 cabbage leaves
• 2 shiitake mushrooms
• 1 scallion
• 1 ginger slice
• 1½ tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of five-spice powder
• 2 tablespoons of heated cooking oil

1. Mix flour, water, and salt together. Knead the dough and set aside. Make sure the dough is not too soft so that it can folded later.
2. Blanch the cabbage leaves and then drain.
3. Chop the cabbage leaves, shiitake mushroom.
4. Mix the ground pork, shrimp paste, cabbage leaves, shiitake mushroom. Grind ginger on top.
5. Mix in soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and five-spice powder.
6. Chop the scallions and add them in. Top with heated oil. Mix and set aside.
7. Roll the dough into a tuble and portion out into balls. Flatten each ball with a rolling pin into a round wrapper.
8. Wrap the meat filling into the dumplings. Use water to seal the fold.
9. Cook the dumplings in boiling water until they float. Enjoy with vinegar and chili oil.