Pan Fried Dumplings (锅贴) - but HALAL!
someone tell me how is this so simple to make yet so YUMMMZ?!
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we invited a couple of friends over this week to teach us to make dumplings & we’re so glad we did!
Fazlin & Iman are the chef-owners of The Han’s Dumplings, a food catering business which started out from the home, selling halal handmade frozen dumplings & bak zhang.
in a bid to relive Iman’s food memories growing up in Harbin, China & also satisfying Fazlin’s dumpling cravings during her first pregnancy, the husband-and-wife duo started their online shop selling halal versions both items. due to a gradual interest from a many halal & non-halal food consumers, they quickly expanded & now run a central kitchen where they regularly fulfil online orders while also selling their items at pop-up fairs in malls around Singapore.
we got ourselves lucky as Iman was so generous in sharing his knowledge of how they prepare their famous potsticker dumplings (锅贴), making it possible for more people to try making them from scratch! while we recommend ordering their delicious frozen dumplings (honestly, we’re super lazy too), below is a recipe that we’ve put together, according to the instructions Iman’s step-by-step instructions so you too can be a dumpling master!
‘Guo Tie’ 锅贴 (Pan-fried Chicken Dumplings)
dumpling skin
300g all purpose flour + extra flour for dusting
150ml water, room temperature
chicken filling
500g minced chicken (try to get the ones with a good amount of fat pieces)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp salt
5 stalks garlic chives ‘koo chye’, sliced
crispy ‘wing’ (optional)
60g oil
20g plain flour
160ml warm water
dipping sauce
3 tbsp black vinegar
50g young ginger, julienned
some Han’s Dumplings’ Chilli Oil
directions
place the flour in a mixing bowl. gradually pour in water until it becomes a tight dough. knead well for about 5 minutes and roll into a ball. cover the bowl of dough with cling wrap or a clean towel and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.
meanwhile, prepare the filling. combine chicken meat in a bowl with the sauces and salt. mix very using a a pair of chopsticks. mix in the sliced chives and until well combined. let the filling marinade for 20 minutes in the chiller.
after the dough has rested, divide into 4 equal portions. roll each portion into a cylindrical log, about 2 inches thick. using a knife or a bench scraper, cut the dough into ping pong sized pieces. roll them into balls and lay them out on a tray, covering all the dough balls with a wet towel to prevent them from drying out.
to make the dumplings, dust the kitchen counter surface with flour. take one piece of dough and slightly flatten with your palm.
using a dim sum rolling pin, roll out the dough into a flat disk, making sure the edges and ultra thin and leaving the middle part slightly thick.
lay the wrapper in the middle of one palm and scoop on about 2-3 teaspoons of filling to the middle of the wrapper.
fold the bottom part over to the top and press down on all the edges, making sure there are no air pockets and that the sides stick to each other well. repeat until all the dough/filling are used up!
heat a non-stick pan on medium flame. in a bowl whisk the ingredients for the ‘crispy wing’. once the pan, is hot pour a thin layer of the batter, just enough to cover the surface of the pan.
let the batter sizzle for 30 seconds before arranging the dumplings on top.
cover the pan with a lid to steam the dumplings. this will take a few minutes.
once the dumpling skin starts to become translucent, remove the lid and cook it further until the ‘wing’ below starts to turn golden throughout and become crispy.
overturn onto a plate. serve hot with a side of vinegar mixed with julienned ginger & chilli oil (optional)
ALTERNATIVELY, you can simply pan fry the dumplings without the crispy wing batter (use the same steaming and crisping method) or boil the dumplings in hot water to make shui jiao.
The crispy wing technique is such a clutch move for potstickers. Most homemade versions skip this part and you end up with dumplings that are good but missing that restaurant-quality bottom crunch. The water-flour slurry ratio here looks dialed in perfectly cause too much flour makes it weird and pasty rather than lacy. I once tried adding cornstach to the mix after seeing a street vendor in Taipei do it and it turned out suprisingly brittle which worked.