There are a million pork & cabbage dumplings out there, but I’m going to let you in on our family recipe.

The filling is transformed entirely by an extra little step, and the process of folding dumplings with family always brings back happy memories.

Over the lunar new year, we also slip a gold coin into the centre of a single 'lucky' dumpling and it adds to the excitement leading up to the meal itself.

(We tell the kids that person is extra lucky for the year but if you're looking to lower the chances of the tooth fairy visiting, you could swap it out with a nugget of ginger instead).

Making dumplings together is fun, simple and an easy way to involve members of the family who aren't usually present in the kitchen.

Not a bad way to offload some of the labour too!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 packs of Gow Gee dumpling wrappers

• 1kg or ½ Chinese cabbage, finely diced

• 500g pork mince

• 4 stalks green onions, chopped finely

• 1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

• 1 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp sugar

• 4 cloves of garlic, minced

• 2cm piece of ginger, grated + extra piece if playing lucky roulette

• 1 tsp sesame oil

• ½ tsp ground white pepper

• 1 tbsp + ½ tsp salt

• ¼ cup grapeseed/vegetable oil

 My mum’s dumpling sauce:

• 1/3 cup citrus juice (orange, lime or lemon)

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp maple syrup/ 2 tsp sugar, depending on which citrus to balance, if using orange juice, no sugar is needed

• 3 stalks of green onion, chopped finely

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 tbsp grapeseed/vegetable oil

METHOD:

1. In a bowl, add the 1 tbsp of salt to the diced cabbage and give it a good mix. This draws out moisture and prevents the filling from becoming too wet. Leave it to rest for around 15 minutes until the cabbage becomes slightly translucent and you can see a pool of light green liquid at the bottom.

2. Put all of the mix into a cheesecloth and wring out as much of the excess liquid as you can. You’ll be left with around 500g of cabbage. Set aside.

3. In a heatproof mixing bowl, put the green onions, ginger, garlic, sugar and pepper in a pile on top of the mince.

4. Heat the ¼ cup of oil in a pan until smoking hot, and add it on top of the pile. This blooms everything and is the secret to a delicious dumpling. The heat wakes up the pepper and mellows out the aromatics. It’ll sizzle and smell amazing, at this point you can add in the soy, Shaoxing wine, ½ tsp salt and sesame oil and mix the pork mince well for a couple of minutes in a clockwise motion. It’s ready when the white fat bits become a bit stringy, and the whole mix becomes sticky.

5. Now you can add the cabbage with the meat mixture and give everything another good mix.

6. Cook a spoonful in a pan and do a taste test – it should be just too salty/tasty. Add more sugar or salt until it is.

7. Heap a teaspoon of mixture in a wrapper in the centre, wet the edge of half the wrapper, fold it in half and pinch it to close in the middle (12 o’clock). Pleat and pinch along the edges. Once it’s done, press along the entire edge to make sure it’s airtight.

8. To cook, add a large kettle of boiling water to a pot. Once it’s rolling, add the dumplings, a couple at a time and give it a swirl with a wooden spoon so they don’t stick to the bottom. Wait until the dumplings float to the top and add half a cup of tap water to the pot. Once the water comes back to a boil, wait another 30 seconds before you scoop out the dumplings. The skin should be slightly transparent.

9. Give the platter a wiggle to loosen the dumplings so they don’t stick together (you can add some oil to it as an option). Serve immediately with the dipping sauce.

Method for Dipping sauce:

1. Add the green onions and garlic to a heat proof bowl.

2. Heat up the oil until smoking and pour it on top of the aromatics to sizzle.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients, give it a mix until the sugar (if using) is dissolved.

4. Serve with dumplings.

Daiwen hopes to create community and connection by sharing some of her culture and her love of food. When she's not working her regular 9-5, you can also find her cooking (@dwdaiwen) or colouring (@drawwithdaiwen).