Have you ever helped to prepare Chinese New Year eve’s reunion dinner? Or is it usually done by your grandma or mum? 
For those of you guilty ones who hardly or have never helped out, this post is for you! We’re going to share insider tips on how to make 5-star restaurant standard dumplings so you can contribute to your family’s dinner with a bang this year. You can thank us later. 
Good news – it doesn’t matter what’s your level of skills in the kitchen! Chef Cheng shows us how easy and fast it is to prepare amazing dumplings. And the best part of making your own dumplings is that you can eat as many fresh and delicious dumplings as you want at low cost.
Rolling out the dumpling skin
Ingredients are simple – just 500g plain flour and 65g water is needed!
Mix the flour and water until crumbs form
Using your palm, knead the mixture until a smooth dough forms, then cover and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Roll the dough into a long cylindrical shape
Cut out 12-14g of dough
Press it down with your palm to flatten and make a circle
Mentally divide the skin into 8 parts and roll the dumpling skin from the side to the middle point for each part
Fillings mix
If you are going for the traditional type, pork, prawns and chives are the main ingredients. Chinese usually use pork because they find it more delicious than other types of meat. Prawns are sometimes used to add another layer of flavour and texture.
Traditional wraps
There are three main types of traditional wraps, one with folds in one direction, the other with folds on both sides that comes to meet at the center and the last with wave-like folds (usually for boiling).
For the first two types of folds:
1. Put the fillings in the middle of the skin
2. Pinch out a pocket then press it down
3. Keep going until the end
For boiled dumplings fold:
1. Pinch lightly with your thumb and index finger to seal the sides
2. Keep going until the end
3. And it’s done!
Modern wrap
Spice up your dumplings with colourful toppings – Chef Cheng used finely diced carrots, chives, mushrooms, egg whites and yolk. You can practically use any ingredients that you can think of!
1. Pinch the middle, the pinch the sides
2. Use a small forceps for this artful work!
3. The final product!
Make a rainbow of colours!
Go fresh and all-natural
Green from spinach
Orange from carrot
Yellow from pumpkin
Red from beet
Black from charcoal powder
Cooking methods
There are three primary cooking methods – boil, steam and pan-fry.
If boiling, bring a pot of water to boil then drop the dumplings in. Common mistake new cooks make is to remove the dumplings when they float to the surface. But they are not yet ready! Pro tip from chef: add in about 3 tablespoon of room temperature water at 3 different points to avoid overcooking.
If you’re steaming, make sure flour is mixed with water in a 1:1 ratio so the skin won’t dry out.
For pan-fry, heat up a layer of oil on non-stick pan. When ready, put in the dumplings. Once the bottom is brown and crusted, pour in a bit of water and cover with a lid to steam the top and insides.
So which is your favourite cooking method?
Boil it!
Or steam?
Or pan-fry
Sauce
What better condiment to go with dumplings than the classic black vinegar, chives and ginger slices mix? This is slightly acidic, sweet and spicy, a perfect complement to the dish.
And here we have these dumplings that look and taste equally as good. Share with us if you have tried our recipe!
On behalf of the Academy, we wish you a wonderful Chinese New Year, a year of auspiciousness, good health and prosperity 
Interested to learn more amazingly delicious yet unbelievably simple dishes? Stay tuned for our EasyChefLab classes where we have many exciting programmes lined up for you this year! Visit our website to find out more 
https://www.at-sunrice.com/easychef-programmes/
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