I tried cooking dumplings, and I failed.

The first time I had tasty dumplings was in Tainan, Taiwan. It was so good, the taste left an impression in my mind forever. I still remember the heat, the goodness of the sauce, and how it was fried perfectly, that it felt like I had a soulful connection with the cook. Lol. (Dumplings are abundant in Taiwan. If you want to visit the country and like the food, then you have no problem with unfulfilled craving.)

Anyway, that was seven or eight years ago. I never had the chance to cook them and never had the desire to cook them, until, I saw the recipe from one of my mother's food magazines. I felt the jolt. I felt the kick in the gut for something awesome to happen and it's calling me to make it happen. Hah!

Enough of the drama. So here's the recipe, in case you want to try it in your kitchen:

Please don't mind the penmanship. I swear I work hard to make it better.

It was supposed to be a Japanese gyoza or dumplings. But when I was in the supermarket, the cost of buying the mirin (glutinous rice wine for cooking) and sake was a suicide to the wallet. Since it was an experiment, I had to forgo the two ingredients. My dumplings seemed to taste just fine according to my siblings. But I can't help but wonder how it would have tasted with the mirin and sake in it. One day, when I can afford it... Oh, a small bottle of mirin was less than Php 200, but the sake that I found was over Php 500! I had been to different stores looking for the sake alone, but only from that store I found what I needed. Walking away from the shelf was heart wrenching. Lol.

For the record, I followed the instruction. Don't be overwhelmed, just combine everything.

The tricky part was the folding of the dumpling wrapper with the filling. Some of the wrappers' edges were torn when I tried to peel them off from the stack. Because of that, I had shorter space to work on with the folding on some of the wrappers. Anyway, to summarize the process (if you can't read my handwriting, lol):

1. Place a heaping teaspoon of the mixture in the center of the wrapper.

2. Moisten half of the wrapper's edge with water.

3. Fold wrapper over to enclose filling, and pinch the edges together to seal.

4. Chill for 30 minutes. But if you're hungry, forget chilling.

Dumplings can be fried or steamed. But I suggest to fry them first for few minutes for the nice brown color on both sides, and then steam them to fully cook the meat (if you have meat dumplings like this one). But whatever works for you and whichever saves time, it's fine. 

What are dumplings without the sauce? So:

For the dipping sauce:

Just combine: 3 tbsp dark soy sauce

                       1 1/2 tbsp vinegar

                       2 1/2 tbsp brown sugar

                       1 tbsp sesame oil

                       1 tbsp chopped green onions

                       2 tsp chopped garlic                   ----- Mix well.

Happy cooking!

This is how my dumplings looked like. Lol. Looking forward to my second attempt and save my pride!

You can browse the internet for the recipe for a better and clearer version.