Sichuan Pork Dumplings in Red Chili Oil Sauce

Sichuan Pork Dumplings in Red Chili Oil Sauce

Fiery. Simple. Delicious. Works as an appetizer or as a meal.

Course Appetizer, Meal

Keyword Serrano Pepper, Thai Pepper

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 25

Total Time 1 25

Servings servings

Calories 456kcal

Ingredients

For the dumplings’ wrappers

24 wonton wrappers Store-bought is just fine. The ones I used were 3 ½ inches / 9 cms square, and came in a frozen pack of 50. Store-bought is just dandy, but do bear in mind that they take about 2 hours to defrost at room temperature – and that’s exactly how you should defrost them - slowly, at room temperature.
1 tablespoon flour for dusting your dumpling-making work surface
2 tablespoons cold water in a little bowl – for wetting the wrappers’ edges just before you seal them shut

For the dumplings’ filling

12 ounces Boston butt whole then coarsely ground. Pork neck works too. I chopped the pork into a rough 1/3-inch dice and then gave it a few pulsing blitzes in the food processor.
8 spring onions or scallions, white and palest green parts thinly sliced into little disks. Keep the crispest green leaves for slicing into long thin strips for garnish.
1 heaped teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns finely ground in a pestle and mortar
2 teaspoons Shaoxing rice wine
2 teaspoons plain cold-pressed sesame oil
4 tablespoons cold water
1 teaspoon ground sea salt
1 teaspoon ground white pepper

For the chili oil sauce

8 fresh red Thai bird’s eye chilies finely diced, seeds and all, and then mashed to a pulp in a pestle and mortar. The ones I used were each about 2 inches long.
4 tablespoons Chinese chili oil store-bought. The bottled variety from Lee Kum Kee does the trick for me.
4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar I used Muscovado but Demerara is just fine.
1 heaped teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns finely ground in a pestle and mortar
2 star anise whole then lightly crushed
1 stick cinnamon lightly crushed. The stick I used was about 2 inches long.
2 heaped tablespoons fresh ginger root grated skin and all
8 cloves garlic peeled and very thinly sliced
3 tablespoons water

For the garnish

2 green serrano peppers sliced into 1/8-inch disks, seeds and all.
6 green scallion leaves or spring onion leaves. Slice these into long strips about 1/8-inch wide and drop them into a little bowl of cold water. That’ll make the strips curl up into pretty spirals.

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Making the chili oil sauce

I’d start with this so that its flavors have a little time to meld together while you make the filling and prep the dumplings.
So, in a saucepan large enough to easily hold all the sauce’s ingredients, stir together the two soy sauces, rice vinegar, brown sugar, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, garlic, and water.
Set your pan on a medium-high heat, so it slowly comes up to a very gentle boil. As soon as that happens, drop the heat to low and let the pan just barely simmer with a few stirs for 15 minutes. Slow-and-low, you’re aiming here to pull the flavors out of the peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, and garlic. So, watch the heat to be sure you keep the pan at a gently rolling simmer during those 15 minutes.
Remove the sauce from the heat and strain it through a fine sieve into a mixing bowl. Discard the solids caught in the sieve and return the strained, still-hot sauce to its pan.
Now add the mashed bird’s eye chilies and Chinese chili oil to the sauce and give the lot a good stir. The pan can now sit until you’re ready to heat it ready for serving as soon as your dumplings are all cooked.

Making the dumplings’ filling

In a good size mixing bowl, steadily stir all the ingredients together until you get slightly chunky. paste-like mix. This will take a couple of minutes of steady and slow stirring so that all the ingredients – especially the water and sesame oil - are combined into a glistening mixture that holds itself together. That’s it. You’re now all set to form your dumplings.

Making the dumplings

Dust the flour lightly over your work surface – this will help stop any of the wrappers sticking to the surface.
Slice open your pack of defrosted wrappers so that you can peel them off the pile one at a time.
Set a wrapper onto your floured surface and spoon 2 heaped teaspoons of filling into the middle of the wrapper. Use your fingers to form the filling into an oval-shaped mound that runs diagonally across the center of the wrapper, leaving a ½-inch space at either end of the oval.
Use a fingertip to lightly wet a ¼-inch strip around the wrapper’s sides. You’re now ready to fold and seal your dumpling.
Fold the wrapper over the top of the filling, so you form a triangle - with the filling sitting at its base. Now, with the filled wrapper still sitting flat on your work surface, use your fingertips to gently press the two open sides together and seal the dumpling shut. Good. Almost done.
You now want to make sure that those two sides really are sealed shut. So, pick up the dumpling and cup it in the palm of one hand so you can give the seams a little extra pinching together with your free hand’s thumb and forefinger.
Set your now tightly sealed dumpling on your platter under the damp cloth, and move on to the next one.

Cooking the dumplings

You’ll need a big saucepan for this so you can cook the dumplings in as few batches as possible. Each batch should consist of as many dumplings as will fit in a single layer in the bottom of your big pan.
Ok. Fill the pan two-thirds full of water and bring it to a good rolling boil over high heat. Now drop the heat to low so the water is running at a steadily rolling simmer.
Use a slotted spoon to lower each dumpling in your first batch into that simmering water. The dumplings will drop the water’s temperature a little, but it’ll come back up to that rolling simmer in a minute or two. As soon as it does, let the dumplings cook for another three minutes - done.
Remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon and set them aside on a warmed plate. Don’t worry too much about draining them off completely through the slotted spoon; any excess water will help keep them warm on the plate – and stop them from sticking to it - while you cook the next batches.

Serving your Sichuan Pork Dumplings in Red Chili Oil Sauce

First thing to do is to heat the sauce. So, set its pan on high heat, bring it to a boil, give it all a good stir, and turn off the heat.
Now place six dumplings in each diner’s nicely warmed bowl – I used big soup bowls. Pour a quarter of the piping hot red chili oil sauce over the top of the dumplings.
Sprinkle the garnishing curly scallion / spring onion leaves over the top, together with a few slices of the serrano peppers. Serve at once.

Notes

Before you begin

Make sure to have a big platter or tray to hand so you can lay the formed dumplings on it in a single layer as you make them. You’ll also need a slightly damp cloth to cover the formed dumplings, so they don’t start drying out before you boil them.

Tips for folding your dumplings

When you’re folding and sealing your dumplings, it helps to keep a couple of things in mind. First, the wrappers come with a very light coating of flour that keeps them separate in the pack. That coating helps when you wet the wrapper’s edges just before you seal them – the little bit of water mixes with the flour to form sticky edges that makes for a good seal.

Second, wonton wrappers are thin and pretty fragile, so take care to be firm but gentle as you press the edges together to seal the dumplings shut. If you tear a wrapper as you’re forming the dumplings - like I did with a couple – start again with a fresh wrapper.

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