Recipe

Jiaozi (pork and chive dumplings)

40 dumplings (4 servings) · prep 1 h · cook 15 min

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• lunch
• dinner
• chinese

Authored by the maintainer; northern Chinese pork-chive method, boiled or pan-fried.

Ingredients

the wrappers

• 300 g plain flour — Puglia wheat farm
• 160 ml boiling water (for half the dough)
• 40 ml cold water
• 1/2 tsp salt (for the dough) — Trapani salt pans

the filling

• 400 g ground pork (20% fat — don't go leaner)
• 200 g napa cabbage, very finely chopped, salted and squeezed dry
• 100 g garlic chives, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp finely minced ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced — Tropea allium farm
• 1.5 tbsp light soy sauce — Yuasa shoyu brewery
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine
• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp white pepper — Kerala pepper estate

the dip

• Chinkiang black vinegar for dipping
• Chili oil for dipping

Method

1. Make the dough first. Mix flour and salt. Add boiling water to half, stirring; then cold water to the other half. Combine and knead 8 minutes until smooth. Rest, covered, 30 minutes. · 30 min
2. Salt the chopped napa, leave 10 minutes, then squeeze out all the liquid in a clean cloth. This step is non-negotiable. · 10 min
3. Combine pork, drained napa, garlic chives, ginger, garlic, soy, Shaoxing, sesame oil, and white pepper. Stir vigorously in one direction for 90 seconds — develops the filling's bind. · 2 min
4. Roll the dough into a 3 cm-thick rope. Cut into 40 equal pieces. Roll each piece between palms into a ball.
5. Press each ball flat with the heel of your hand. Roll into 8 cm circles, thinner at the edges than the centre — the centre supports the heavier filling, the edges pleat thinner.
6. Place a heaped teaspoon of filling in each wrapper. Fold in half, pinch the centre closed, then pleat 3–4 times along one side toward each end.
7. Cook either boiled (drop into a pot of vigorously boiling water, stir gently. When dumplings float, add 100 ml cold water. Repeat twice. Total 5 minutes) or pan-fried (heat 2 tbsp oil in a wide pan over medium-high. Arrange dumplings flat-side down. Fry 2 minutes until golden underneath. Add 100 ml water and cover. Steam 6 minutes. Uncover, let any remaining water evaporate). The pan-fried version is *guotie*, the boiled version is *shui jiao*. · 8 min
8. Whisk equal parts black vinegar and water with a splash of soy and a spoonful of chili oil. Serve dumplings hot with dipping sauce.

Notes

Northern Chinese jiaozi are New Year food — the shape recalls ancient
yuanbao gold ingots, and the act of folding them is a household
ritual. Three forms share the same wrapper: boiled (*shui jiao*),
pan-fried (*guotie* — the Beijing original; *gyoza* in Japan is the
same shape), and steamed.

Freeze raw on a tray, then bag. Cook from frozen — boiled dumplings
go straight from freezer to boiling water, no thawing. Frozen jiaozi
are the single best thing to have in a home freezer.