What Baba Cooked

I recently tried these chicken and prawn dumplings at Rocksalt in Menai and couldn’t stop thinking about them! And just like every other time I tried something amazing, I knew I had to try to recreate something as similar as possible to enjoy at home. The dumplings themselves are amazing, and when paired with this spicy tangy sauce: pure magic. You could also serve the sauce as a small dipping sauce and cook the dumplings like regular potstickers. I’m really excited to share my recipe for these more-ish prawn and chicken dumplings.

What you need:

For the dumplings:

• 250 g chicken mince
• 250 g raw prawns, peeled and minced (I used a stick blender)
• 2 smoked garlic cloves, finely grated
• 2 cm piece ginger, finely grated
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour
• ½ tsp white pepper
• Pinch of salt
• 2 to 3 packets dumpling wrappers

To cook the dumplings:

• 2 tbsp neutral oil (vegetable, grapeseed or canola)
• ½ cup water

For the chilli sauce:

• ⅓ cup Chinkiang vinegar
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp Szechuan chilli oil (more if you like heat)
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp sugar or honey
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• ½ small red onion, very finely diced

What to do:

• To make the dumplings, add everything except the chicken mince to a food processor and pulse until smooth, add the chicken mince and pulse a couple of times to incorporate everything.
• Place a teaspoonful of filling into the centre of each wrapper. Wet the edge with water, fold over and pleat or press closed.
• For the sauce, combine all the ingredients and stir until the sugar dissolves. Leave a small amount of the sliced chilli and spring onion to sprinkle on top just before serving.
• Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil and place the dumplings flat-side down in the pan. Cook for 2–3 minutes until the bottoms are golden and crisp.
• Turn the dumplings over and add the sauce* (carefully, it will splutter!) and cook for another five minutes or so, until the filling is cooked through and the wrappers are tender. The sauce will reduce and thicken slightly.
• Spoon some of the spiced vinegar sauce onto a serving plate, then arrange the dumplings on top. Drizzle a tiny bit more Szechuan chilli oil on top.
• Optional: drizzle more sauce over the dumplings and finish with extra chilli, spring onion, or fresh coriander.

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Recipe notes

• *You can hold back some of the sauce, or make a little extra, for serving as a dipping sauce alongside the dumplings.
• Feel free to adjust the ratio of prawns and chicken. This also multiplies or reduces easily, I made a huge batch of 120 dumplings for sharing using 500g mince and 700g prawns.
• The dumplings can be made ahead and frozen uncooked. Cook them straight from frozen allowing a few extra minutes steaming time.
• I added smoked garlic to the dumpling filling simply because I happened to stumble on it the day I was shopping for ingredients, and I was absolutely blown away by the smokey aroma. I have to say, it really adds a depth to the dumplings that I love.
• I’ve opted for dark soy over regular for a deeper complexity of flavour, feel free to use regular soy sauce.