Jiaozi: A Chinese Dumpling

We had a cooking session at the Laibin National Middle School in Guangxi where they taught us how to make the popular Chinese food jiaozi or dumpling. It is also called pot sticker. It should not be mistaken with wonton since jiaozi have thicker and chewier skin whereas wonton has a thinner skin and with different ingredients.

This is a traditional food that consists typically of a ground meat and vegetable filling wrapped in a thin rolled piece of dough and the edges are sealed by crimping. Water dumplings, steamed dumplings and shallow fried dumplings are the various types of dumplings.

When we arrived at the kitchen of the canteen, the materials are already ready. The teachers began to teach us how to make the dough. The filling was already done and what we did was to make the dough, rolled and cut to small pieces and put in the filling. The art of making jiaozi lies in the crimping or sealing and pressing the edges.

Here are the ingredients:

Flour, Water, Cabbage, Pork,
Seasonings (salt, soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil, chopped green onio and ginger)

Heres the procedure:

Grind the pork and mix it with the chopped cabbage and put in seasonings. Stir the mixture well. Second stage is to make the dough. Put the wheat flour in a bowl while pouring water little by little. Stir it well to make it sticky. Rest it for 20 minutes. Later cut it into small pieces. Press each piece with the palm of your hand slightly and roll it with rolling pin into a round piece.

Next stage is the folding of the dough to make Jiaozi. Hold a piece of dough in your left hand and put a filling in the central portion. Press the upper-central part of it firmly and make firm and nice lace from left to right around the fold edge. Lastly, cook the Jiaozi by boiling in a pot of water. Keep boiling for 10 minutes. After its done, you are ready to enjoy the delicious jiaozi.

Cooking was a lot of fun and everybody enjoyed it.