Pan fried/ Steamed Asian Dumplings

Ingredients:

For wrapper: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, rice flour for dusting, salt and sugar to taste, vinegar, lukewarm water.

For filling: chicken or tofu or paneer, spring onions (scallions), garlic, ginger, white pepper, salt, vinegar, oil. My stuffing is bland to make it more dimsum or Asian flavored but you can add spicy sauces, Maggie soup taste cubes or other flavors to suit your tastes. I have made Thai fillings with Thai curry paste added to the filling.

Procedure to make wrapper: mix the flour with your fingers or a fork, adding warm water sparingly. With your fingers try and make granules out of the flour as it starts to moisten. Then add salt, sugar and vinegar and make a firm but moist dough like that for rotis or tortillas. Roll the dough out into palm sized circular wrappers using rice flour if needed to dust and prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin. This will be the wrapper. These wrapper can be stored with Saran Wrap or butter paper between them in the fridge for a few days.

Procedure to make filling: In a shallow wok, add oil, chopped scallions, either minced chicken, paneer or diced tofu. You can substitute any of these with other meat, shrimp or crunchy veggies that will not soften the dough from inside--I have tried corn, spinach, broccoli, peas and carrots etc and it worked great. Mix the ingredients with the sauce of your choice and add salt, sugar and vinegar to the mix. Heat on a mild flame and with a fork mash your filling up a little. Make sure the filling is on the dry side and so don't use water. Pre-boil and drain the veggie or meat beforehand to keep it dry. You can add either white pepper or red chili to spice this up.

Procedure to make dumpling: On one half of the circular wrapper, place filling. Do not overfill, as it will burst open the dumpling. Fold the other hemisphere over the filling and with a bit of water seal the edges into a half-moon. Apply slight pressure on the top of the dumpling to seal it. Brush it with oil. After the dumplings are made, put them in a container that fits into your pressure cooker. The pressure cooker should contain water to steam the dumplings (remove the stopper, also called "whistle" from the cooker while steaming and let the heat be at medium max such that you see a steady stream of steam escaping from the stopper opening). Let the water from the cooker steam the dumplings for about 15-20 minutes. The steamed dumplings are ready to be eaten with a sauce. They can also be pan fried to make the outer area crisp. The steamed dumplings can be frozen and pan fried as an when needed.

Dipping sauce: I make a dipping sauce by grinding tomato sauce, garlic, vinegar, salt and red chili powder and thickening it over a shallow wide pan with addition of sugar. Pour this sauce into a glass bottle, leave open until it is at room temperature and then refrigerate to store.