Pork & Shrimp Dumplings and Rangoon two ways
I have one of my favorite Youtube content creators, and Barstool Sports foreign correspondent, The Wonton Don to thank for this one. Donnie’s namesake comes from the period of time he spent living in China when one of his exploits was turning pretty much anything you can think of into a rangoon. He had a series called Gooned Up where he turned just about every delicious bar food from Philly cheese steaks to buffalo chicken in to some version of rangoon, cooking with his local cleaning lady, Hu Ayi. After following Donnie for years, and with my ever growing love for asian cuisine, I recently took the plunge myself into the dumpling realm.
My first attempt at dumplings was a joint venture with my wife, who was responsible for making the dough. Dumpling dough seems intimidating, but is extremely simple and just two ingredients, flour and water. Most of the technicality is in rolling the dough super thin. The simple alternative is to just get pre-made wonton wrappers in the frozen section of the grocery, which are super cheap and save a lot of time, but for anyone interested in going from scratch like we did in this first recipe, here is a great how to video from one of my favorite home chefs for Asian recipes, Marion’s Kitchen:
The best thing about dumplings is that there are literally a million possible fillings. I didn’t have exactly what was called for in the pork and shrimp dumplings in my dumpling book, but just went freestyle with flavors I know would work well together and they turned out great.
Filling Ingredients
pork mince
shrimp (shelled, cleaned, and chopped)
garlic (minced)
onion (minced)
spring onion (chopped)
carrot (shredded)
soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger salt, sesame oil, and white pepper (to taste, go with your instinct, some may like more of these ingredients than others)
Dumpling Filling
You do not have to cook the filling prior to wrapping your dumplings. Whether you boil them, steam them, or fry them the average cook time will be around 8 min and there will be enough heat generated from the boing water, steam, or oil at 350º to fully cook the inside. If you are nervous if your dumplings are not fully cooked through you can do a simple test by sticking a toothpick in one, if it comes out clean then they are cooked all the way through.
Don’t Over Stuff!
Overstuffing your dumplings will cause them to burst! I know it’s tempting to try and pack in as much filling as you can, but make sure your ratios aren’t ridiculous. Simply use about a tablespoon of filling for each wonton you’ve rolled out super thin. The thicker the skins the stronger they will be, but also will become much more doughy - so thinner is better, less is more in this case.
Into The Fold
My folds were horrendous this first time around, but it is a learning process. You will want to wet the outer edge of the dumpling dough with water to make sure it seals, and I attempted a “lucky 8” with eight pinched folds gyoza style along the top. As you can see, some were better than others, luckily the shape does not effect how delicious these tasted.
Cooking
I went with the half fry half steam potsticker method. Add a teaspoon of oil (I used olive oil with a few drops of toasted sesame oil for flavor) and set your dumplings flat side down. Let them fry four about 4 or 5 minutes on medium heat, then add 1/4 cup of water and cover. Be carful when adding the water, any remaining oil in the pan will cause it to spit, so stand back and gently pour down the side of your fry pan immediately covering the pan and allowing the water to steam. Once the water has evaporated your dumplings are ready to eat! I used a gyoza soy and vinegar dipping sauce as well as a Vietnamese fish sauce vinegar and a Thai sweet chili for dipping sauce options here.
Now that we have been through the “make your own dough” process lets fast-forward to the the cheat where we buy pre-made frozen wonton skins in the store. I’ve got two delicious rangoon recipes here that are easy to make, easy to deep fry, and fun to dip and eat!
Ingredients
store bought frozen wonton wrappers
vegetable oil for frying
Sausage Pepper and Onion Rangoon
ground Italian sausage
green and red bell pepper (diced)
onion (diced)
mozzarella cheese (shredded)
1/2 tub plain cream cheese
Crab Rangoon
8oz can or jar of lump crabmeat
spring onion (chopped)
1 tub of scallion cream cheese
This time I did cook off only the sausage for the filling. Fry off the mince pork in a pan, drain, and in a bowl mix the pork sausage, chopped peppers and onion, and cheeses, fold in until everything is mixed well. Let the mixture sit in the refrigerator for 30 min to set, it will make it much easier when filling the wonton wrappers if the cream cheese has firmed up and the filling is not soft.
Similarly for the crab, chop the spring onions and combine with crab and cream cheese. This one was a little soupier even after letting sit in the fridge just because the ratio of cream cheese to other ingredients was higher than the fist recipe.
For rangoon, the triangle fold is the easiest. Same as the dumplings, wet the edge with water, and simply fold over. Over-stuffing with filling is a slightly bigger issue here, so be generous, but also show a little restraint - because when one of these pops in 350º cooking oil things get a bit sporty. They deep fry quickly so keep an eye on them, about 4 to 5 minutes until golden brown. Let them dry on a wire rack so the air gets all around them for extra crispy skin, and don’t worry about letting them sit, the filling will still be piping hot even if they sit for 10 minutes. Be very careful biting into your first one, if you don’t have patience you’ll have a burned mouth!
For the dipping sauces I used Rao’s marinara for the sausage and pepper rangoon, and a Thai sweet chili for the crab. Both were fantastically delicious and made for a great rainy Sunday afternoon movie snack. Be sure to comment if you try these out, and let me know how your dumpling adventures turned out. Don’t forget to follow Reebz Kitchen on Instagram and Facebook to keep up with all the news and happenings going on. Happy cooking!