Chinese New Year Vegetable Dumplings

emointhekitchen

During the Spring Festival, almost every family will eat dumplings that are shaped like ingots, which means “attract wealth”. Judging by ancient customs, dumplings are a dish eaten after New Year’s sacrifices. Dumplings are one of the traditional dishes. In the old days, there were only wontons. Later, wontons were made into a crescent shape to become dumplings. The custom of eating dumplings spread to remote areas of the country during the Tang Dynasty (618–690, 705–907).

Chinese culture is vast and deep, and folk customs also have their characteristics. Some people eat dumplings on New Year’s Eve, some people eat dumplings on the first day of the new year, and in some areas in the north, it is customary to eat dumplings every morning from the first to the fifth day…

Dumplings, an essential food for Chinese New Year, are usually wrapped before midnight on New Year’s Eve and eaten until midnight, as this is the beginning of the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar. The filling of spring dumplings can roughly be divided into meat and vegetarian. All kinds of meat stuffing, seafood stuffing, vegetable stuffing and so on. According to folk tradition, people also wrap some ingredients in the dumplings, such as red dates, which indicate the soon birth of a baby, and some give chestnuts, which indicate good luck. Although the customs of eating dumplings differ from place to place.

I have patiently checked all the dumpling recipes in the kitchen and no recipe is the same. I decided to it out and share it with you, simple, delicious dumplings with tofu and eggplant.

dough

400 g dumpling flour
water (300-400ml)

filling

firm tofu
Baby eggplant
green onions
shallot
tamari
salt
pepper
corn powder

Place the flour in a large bowl. Slowly drip the water in a steady stream and stir it by hand. Once incorporated, the dough should still look a little crunchy with a few loose, dry pieces. Start kneading the dough with your hands and as needed until it is very smooth. Shape the dough into a ball and let it rest under a tea towel for 20 minutes. Drizzle a tiny bit of oil into the mixing bowl and roll the dough ball around to lightly coat it all over. Cover with a tea towel again and this time, rest for at least 1 hour or up to overnight (use food wrap tightly if resting ).

Cut the eggplant into slices and salt with salt for 10 minutes. Rinse off the salt from the eggplant, turn it out on a kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible, diced the eggplant and the onion. Drizzle a little oil and fry the chopped chives, eggplant and onion for about 2 – 3 minutes. Add salt, pepper, corn powder, mashed tofu, chives, onion, tamari and eggplant and mix well. Put them all in one bowl.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form it into 3-centimetre balls. Flatten each ball with a rolling pin until approximately 7 to 8 centimetres in diameter. Brush the edges of each dough piece lightly with water and place 1 teaspoonful of the filling in the centre. Fold in half, pressing the edges together to seal.
Drop one at a time into boiling water. Remove after the dumplings float to the top, about 5 minutes.