Easy recipe: Savoury dumplings

Many people assume wheat flour only makes chapatis and or pancakes but chef Ted Treffers Odhiambo begs to differ.

There is also a group that assumes dumplings are only made for Chinese and tends to bury the thought of having them in restaurants or cooking at home.

For a refresher, a dumpling is a piece of cooked dough mostly wrapped around a filling. The dough used can be based on wheat, potatoes, bread or other flour. In the same way, the ingredients of the filling are allowed to change.

According to Treffers, dumplings are better served with a sweet sauce to make them moist hence easy to chew.

Here are some of the instructions shared by our chef of the day regarding this meal.

Ingredients:

Dumplings

All-purpose flour (works perfectly to make nice and soft dumpling wraps).

.

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1 egg

Milk or water

250g ground beef or pork or both. You can also use turkey or chicken.

1 onion - You may omit onion, but it adds great flavour.

Seasoning of your choice

Sauce

Dark soy sauce

Brown sugar

Sesame seeds

Spring onions

Instructions:

To make the dough, put one cup of flour in a bowl. Add in the egg, one cup of milk or water and mix gently until the dough is soft and easy to work with.

"Don't add all the water at once. You may not need it all. Instead add a little at a time, until the dough is soft and not too sticky. You can also use store-bought pot sticker wraps. It makes the process much faster," said Treffers.

For the filling, fry your minced beef and customize using vegetables, like cabbage, carrots, spinach etc.

"Adding water makes the filling soft and juicy. Feel free to add any vegetables to the meat mixture. My favourites are Napa cabbage, carrots, spinach," added Treffers.

Once you have carefully wrapped the filling in the dough to create sphere-like shapes, it is now time to make the dumplings.

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat.

Add oil and then arrange fresh dumplings in one layer.

Fry until the bottom of the dumplings for about two minutes or until the bottom is golden in colour.

Then carefully add water into the skillet, cover and cook for about 15 minutes while stirring occasionally.

For the sauce, mix one cup of dark soy sauce with three tablespoons of brown sugar, one spoon of sesame seeds and spring onions.

Once the dumplings float to the top, they're cooked. Serve with butter and/or sour cream.