JiaoZi - Chinese Dumplings

Dumpling making parties are fun and tasty. The mixture is made to taste based on ingredients you prefer and have available. Omit the meat to make vegetarian style. Anything goes with jiaozi - my friend Kevin once made a mango jiao zi because he couldn't eat the pork filling we made.

• 2 pkg wrappers (Shanghai style, not Hong Kong; the thicker the better)
• 1 lb lean ground pork
• 2-3 zucchini (cabbage can be substituted) [balance]
• Chinese mushrooms, soaked and chopped [flavor]
• shrimp (uncooked, peeled, deveined, chopped, liberally salted) 
• salt
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• freshly grated ginger (or ground ginger for different flavor)
• water chestnuts [texture], chopped
• optional: thin rice noodles (softened and chopped), minced spinach (if low on zucchini), garlic, chives [flavor], pepper (white or black), tofu (firm)

1. Grate zucchini, add salt to sweat. Rest for 10-20 min and drain excess liquid.
2. Add mushrooms, ginger, water chestnut to zucchini. Push to half of bowl. If using, also add spinach, noodles, tofu, chives, garlic.
3. In other half of mixing bowl, add the pork. Season liberally with salt (esp if boiling the dumplings). Add splashes of soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil. Mix pork well.
4. Mix 2 mixtures together.
5. Place filling in wrapper with one or two pieces of shrimp.
6. Boil in water until floating and thoroughly cooked - approximately 4 minutes when fresh. Otherwise, freeze immediately. Frozen dumplings take approximately 7 minutes to cook.

Notes

11/6/11 Had a lot of home ground pork leftover from making sausages (ran out of intestine casings), so used the extra meat to make jiaozi. Local store only carries wonton wrappers (square shape, not circle), so used those instead. Pork, zucchini, sesame oil, soy sauce, ground ginger, water chestnuts/shrimp, chinese mushrooms. 3 batches with various ratios of veg to meat. All delicious!

2/15/22 Had a jiaozi making party - a huge success. One friend made a Hong Kong style filling (scallions, bok choi, pork and garlic). Used 1.3 kg pork between the 2 mixtures and had enough to have lunch amongst the 4 of us as well as feeding 4 families for dinner.