Content

• Tips
• Warnings

1 Chop the cabbage and place in the saucepan.

2 Mix the cabbage and minced meat by hand. The minced meat should be small enough, without large pieces. Jiaoji is most commonly made with lamb or pork in China, but other meats are also possible, including beef, chicken and turkey. At the same time, minced meat in South Asia is always made by hand.

3 Add green onions, salt and some cornstarch and stir again thoroughly.

4 Knead the cabbage and minced meat mixture by hand for 10 minutes. The mixture should eventually be dry. If you feel the mixture is too wet and lacking in cornstarch, add more.

5 Wrap the mixture in dough or special rice paper. In Asia, supermarkets sell special ready-made casings for dumplings, which are the thinnest pieces of dough, the thickness of a sheet of paper. Usually they are round with a diameter of 7-8 cm. The dough for such casings is made from flour, eggs and salt. Most of these sheets are made in China and are suitable for both boiling and steaming, as well as deep-frying or pan-frying.

6 Moisten the edges with wet fingers and close the dumpling. To do this, first fold the dough in half, wet your fingers and press firmly on all sides around the edges. Then, bending the edges, close it again so that the result looks like the photo below. You can also use special dumplings to make the process quicker and easier.

7 Make sure all edges are well sealed.

8 Dip the dumplings in boiling water. Let the dumplings cook. To make the dumplings fully cooked, China uses the "three boil" method. First, dumplings are thrown into boiling water and brought to a boil. Then add 1-2 glasses of water (cold or room temperature) and bring to a boil again. Then water is poured again. When the water boils for the third time, the dumplings are ready!

9 Gently transfer the dumplings to a plate. Bon Appetit!

Tips

• Any sauce can be served with dumplings. We recommend trying dumplings with soy sauce, vinegar, hot sauce, or garlic sauce.
• You can make dumplings with a wide variety of fillings: pork with celery, beef with onions, chicken with mushrooms, and so on.
• Instead of boiling the dumplings, you can steam them.
• When boiling dumplings, the water should not boil too much, otherwise they may fall apart.
• Do not add too much filling - these dumplings can easily fall apart and become less tasty because of this.
• If you want to try fried dumplings, it is best to do it with ready-made dumplings, otherwise it will be quite difficult to fry the meat in the middle of each dumpling.
• Finished dumplings can be frozen to cook later. It is very convenient!
• Dumplings can be not only with meat, but also with fish, seafood or vegetables.

Warnings

• Dumplings absorb water when boiling, so make sure you add enough water. Also, be careful when you eat as there may be hot juice inside the dumplings.
• If you are making meat dumplings, make sure they are well cooked.