The Fried Dumplings

Years ago I asked my mother for her dumpling recipe.  I adapted it and made it my own and have been making it for parties year after year.  People stash them when I make them so they can eat some later, yes, I will say they are THAT good.  Here's a pic from this year's annual holiday brunch that I attend...

Japanese wontons.

1/3 lb ground pork

1/3 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined and minced

1/3 lb scallops

Blanched cabbage, Chinese or regular (4 large leaves) (called hakusai in Japanese)

2 tsp sesame oil

1.5 tsp ground fresh ginger

1 clove of garlic, minced

2 stalks of green onion, minced

4 shiitake mushrooms diced (rehydrated dry ones or fresh)

½ tsp salt

½ tsp sugar

¼ tsp white pepper

1 tbsp miso paste

1 package SQUARE wonton wrappers (about 50)



Mix all ingredients together by hand in large bowl until thoroughly mixed.



Most of the ingredients are self explanatory. The three that aren’t so simple:

• blanched cabbage – just briefly boil about 4 leaves, 5 minutes at most, and then take them out, and wring them out. As much water out as you can. Then chop them up.

• Ginger – make sure to grind this – we have a special grounding device that basically turns anything you rub on it into mush. It doesn’t have holes in it but has raised points that grind up the ginger. This is better than diced pieces of ginger! I personally hate biting into food and biting into bitter ginger! Yikes.

• Miso paste – white or red will work. My personal preference is red, mainly for miso soup purposes. It’s a little stronger in taste and less tart.



Place a heaping teaspoon of meat mixture in center of wrapper. Sometimes you will notice that one side of the wrapper has more flour on one side. This is the side that should be the interior of the dumpling, since flour plus water equals glue and that will hold it together! When you fry these, you obviously want to make sure the meat cooks all the way, but you will be surprised by how quickly the skins fry up, so make sure to not jamb pack them with meat.

Wet edges with water and fold over, creating a triangle, pressing along edge to seal.

Wrap all dumplings before cooking.

Deep fry in max 350° oil until golden.

Drain on paper towels.


Serve with sauce. The sauce may be key as well. I will take a picture of some good jarred sauce and show it here.  Or you can make sauce at home with the following:

- 3 parts soy sauce
- 1 part sriracha - chili garlic sauce
- 1 part sesame oil
- 1 part rice vinegar