Do you like Chinese dumplings? Do you want to cook it by yourself? Are you curious about how people make such delicious food? If you answered yes to the above questions, you will feel this instructable very useful. You can cook dumplings on your own after you read it.

Step 1: Materials:

If you want to make dumplings, for four adults, the following items are required (You can buy most of them in a normal market and buy wrappers and some seasonings in an Asian market):

Ingredients:

1 lb minced pork.
1 cabbage.
1lb mushrooms. (I use pleurotus ergngii for my own taste, but normal mushroom are good for the taste of most people).
1 Packet of dumplings wrappers.
25g Salt.
15g Soy sauce.

Equipment:

1 large bowl.
1 sharp knife.
1 chopping board.
Chopsticks.

Step 2: Make the Filling:

1. Use the knife to chop the minced pork to be more minced. Because the pork is the main part of the filling and the minced pork we bought from the market is always not minced enough. We need to chop it three or four times in order to make it more uniform after mixing with other ingredients.

2. Shred the cabbage. You need to wash the cabbage before you shred it. If you want to shred it faster you can use two knives at the same time.

3. Chop the mushrooms. The reason why dumplings are delicious is mainly because of the carefully made filling. So, for the mushrooms, you also need to shred it very small in order to make a good texture.

Step 3: Mix the Filling:

Put the minced pork, shreded cabbage and mushrooms into a large enough bowl and use the chopticks to mix them in the same direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) for 1 minute. Put 25g salt and 15g soy sauce in the filling and mix it for another 1 minute. The time of the mixing has to be uniform, or some of the cooked dumplings will be too salty and some will lack salty.

Step 4: Wrap Dumplings:

Caution: Most of the wrappers bought from the Asian market are frozen. So before you start to make the dumplings. Take the wrappers out from the refrigerator and warm it to the room temperature. Never use hot water to warm it up! It could become a paste if you do so.

1. The first step of wrapping dumplings is to put the wrapper flat on your hand.

2. Use the chopsticks to put moderate amounts of filling on the middle of the wrapper. Do not put too much or too less filling. Or it will be hard to wrap the filling inside and makes the dumplings not taste good.

3. Fold the two sides of the wrapper together. Make sure the filling cannot escape from the wrapper. Try to make some crimp on the sides so that the surface can stick to each other closer. You can also wet the edge with some water to make it easier to stick.

4. Press the sides together again in the way I showed in the following picture. The key point of the wrapping is to keep your filling inside of your wrapper. If you failed to do that, you will have a meat and paste soup.

Step 5: Boil the Dumplings:

After you have successfully made enough mounts of dumplings (I made 60 for 4 people), you can put it in into the boiling water. Because my pot is not large enough. I have to cook the dumplings twice: 30 dumplings each time. You need to put the dumplings into the pot one by one to avoid them sticking together.
When you cook the dumplings, always remember to not let the dumplings remain in the bottom of the pot. Use a spoon to mix them up.
Turn off the heat after all of the dumplings are floating.
Use a spoon to take the dumplings out from the pot and put them on a large plate. Then your dumplings are good to eat.

Step 6: Traditional Ways of Eating Dumplings (optional):

People eat dumplings in many different ways in China. But almost all of Chinese people do not eat them directly. Some people eat it with vinegar and soy sauce, some with spicy sauce and some with the special dumplings sauce which can be bought in most Asian markets. You can choose your sauce by your own taste.
In China, dumpling means family, happiness, and celebration. Share it with your families and friends and enjoy it!