Pan-Fried Garlic Chives Shrimp Dumplings

Since the Lunar New Year is coming up, I'd thought I'd do a post on one of mine and my kids' favorite dumplings. I first tried these in a Bay Area dim sum restaurant years ago, but I'm not always able to order them readily at my usual dim sum eateries in SoCal. So a few years ago I tried making them myself and was successful. Although I've got my own version for the filling now, I've tried various recipes for the dumpling wrapper (basic har gow wrappers), and have liked this one provided by Elaine from A Series of Kitchen Experiments. I double the ingredients in order to get more dumplings skins.

Garlic chives are also called Chinese Chives and are a little different than the usual chives you might use in American cooking. They have a stronger flavor, and the leaves are flat. I love eating these straight up after boiling them for a while, which I did daily while recovering from having my kids, as they are supposely great for the postpartum era. I call it an era because it really is an era. Garlic chives are also good in soup with tofu.

Ingredients for the Dumpling Skins:
1.5 cups wheat starch
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup boiling water

Ingredients for the Filling:
3/4 pounds garlic chives, chopped
1/3 pounds shrimps, deveined and diced
1 teaspoon tapioca starch
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper

Ingredients for Dumpling Sauce:
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon chili (optional)

You'll also need oil for frying.

First, wash the chives. In a pot of boiling water, add the chives in for a couple of minutes, then drain them. Add in the shrimp and the rest of the filling ingredients and mix well.

Prepare the dough for the dumpling skins. Mix the starches and salt together in a bowl and then add in the boiling water. Mix the dough with your hands until you are able to get a dough that you're able to roll out. I often do what Elaine suggests and add in an extra tablespoon of the boiling water at a time if it's too dry. The consistency of the dough is a little tricky to achieve. Too little water and it'll be too crumbly and fall apart. Too much water and it will be too sticky and hard to work. If you accidentally add too much water, try putting in a little bit more of the wheat starch to rebalance it. When your dough is ready, keep it covered with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

Take a 3/4 inch ball of dough and pat it out with your hands until you obtain a flat circular disk about 2 inches in diameter. I don't like to "roll" them out because they often stick to the board anyways. Take about 2 teaspoons of the filling, place it on the disk and then pull up the dough around the filling and close the dumpling up. Flatten the whole dumpling a little. I get about 20 dumplings from this amount of dough, sometimes a little less.

Arrange the dumplings in a flat pan with a thin layer of oil on the bottom. Fry the dumplings 2 minutes per side on medium-high heat. Then add 2/3 cups water to the pan, cover, and steam for 6 minutes. Remove the cover and continue cooking until the water evaporates, about 1-2 minutes more. Then fry for about 2 minutes more on each side until crisp and slightly brown.

Serve with the dumpling sauce. Gung Hay Fat Choy, and Happy Inauguration Day for those in the States.