Pork and Chive Boiled Dumplings

Ingredients

• 500g plain flour
• 260ml cold water
• 3g salt
• 500g minced pork (about 25% fat)
• 250g Chinese garlic chives, finely chopped
• 150ml cold chicken stock
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp neutral oil
• Chinese black vinegar and chilli oil, to serve

Before you cook

• Mix the flour and 3g salt, add the cold water gradually, and bring it into a firm dough.
• Knead for 10 minutes until smooth, then cover and rest for 45 minutes.
• Wash and dry the garlic chives thoroughly, then chop them finely.
• Put the pork in a bowl with the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, ginger, 1 tsp salt, white pepper and sugar.

Steps

1. Stir the pork mixture vigorously in one direction for 3 minutes until it turns sticky and pale.
2. Add the cold stock a splash at a time, stirring in the same direction, until the meat has absorbed it all and looks glossy.
3. Stir in the sesame oil and neutral oil, which will coat the chives and stop them weeping.
4. Fold the chopped garlic chives through the filling and refrigerate it for 20 minutes.
5. Roll the rested dough into a long rope and cut it into 50 small pieces.
6. Press each piece flat with your palm.
7. Roll each piece into a round about 8cm across, keeping the centre thicker than the rim.
8. Hold a wrapper in your palm and place a heaped teaspoon of filling in the middle.
9. Fold the wrapper in half and pinch it closed at the centre.
10. Pleat one side from the centre outwards, pressing each pleat against the flat back edge to seal.
11. Repeat the pleating on the other side, then stand the dumpling up so it sits with a curved belly.
12. Continue until all the dumplings are shaped, keeping the finished ones on a floured tray under a cloth.
13. Bring a large pot of water to a hard boil.
14. Slide in about 20 dumplings and stir once so they do not stick to the base.
15. When the water returns to the boil, pour in a cup of cold water.
16. Repeat that cold water trick twice more, which takes around 6 minutes in total.
17. Lift the dumplings out when they are plump and floating with translucent skins.
18. Cook the remaining batches the same way and serve with black vinegar and chilli oil for dipping.