It's that time again: Is My Blog Burning? that is. This month's theme, hosted by the creative A La Cuisine!, is tasteTea, meaning any dish, either a food or a drink, that involves tea and is tasty. I was thinking of coming up with my own interesting Ice Tea recipe, but I really wanted to try cooking with tea. I also didn't really want to make a dessert since I often have bad luck with baking. This of course led me on a hunt through all my cookbooks searching for a recipe that used tea.
Unfortunately, my search only turned up some tips on brewing the perfect cuppa. After browsing around on the internet for some time, I kept getting routed back to a cookbook called Eat Tea, so I decided to head over to Barnes & Noble to check it out. To make a long story short, I bought it.
After poring through all the recipes, I decided on the Green Tea Dumplings, especially as I've been on an Asian food kick lately. I followed the recipe more or less, substituting turkey for pork in the filling because I wanted to share them with Mom who doesn't eat mammals. I also kept the fillings in the fridge overnight where the flavors combined and deepened. And they tasted even better fried.
Green Tea Dumplings
Dough
2 1/4 cups Hot Water
1 tablespoon finely ground Green Tea Leaves (easiest in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle)
1 tablespoon Brown Sugar
2 pounds Flour
Filling
1 1/2 pounds ground Turkey (or Pork)
1 head Napa Cabbage, cored and finely chopped
1 Egg, beaten
3 Shallots, finely chopped
2 tablespoons Green Tea Leaves
2 tablespoons Ginger, minced
Salt and Pepper
1/2 cup Soy Sauce
2 tablespoons Sesame Oil
For the Dough: Combine Water, Tea, Brown Sugar and Flour in a blender and mix into a ball of smooth dough. Place in a bowl, cover and let rest 30 minutes.
For the filling: While the dough is resting, mix together the Turkey, Napa Cabbage, Egg, Shallots, Tea, Ginger, Salt and Pepper, Soy Sauce and Sesame Oil in another bowl. Cook a small amount in a skillet to check the seasonings.
Cut the dough into small pieces and roll it out into circles on a floured board. Be sure to roll it out very thinly or else you will end up with monster-sized doughy dumplings (which can be very good as well).
Place 1 heaping tablespoon of Filling on the dough and fold it up, crimping the edges.
Boil the dumplings in salted water for 8 minutes, the drain on paper towels. If you like, heat the oil in a skillet and fry the dumplings on both sides. Serve with Dipping Sauce. Makes about 50 dumplings.
6 comments:
I think I will try these. What is Napa cabbage?
Yippee for dumplings. I made mine also with green tea but boiled them. I wonder what they would have tasted deep fried?
Barbara--Napa cabbage is a milder tasting Chinese cabbage which is more oval than round. You can very easily substitute a smaller head of regular cabbage.
Boo--They were crunchier deep fried and the difference in textures between the hard outside and soft filling was delightful.
Would love to try this recipe. However, for novice cooks as myself, also with no kitchen scale, would have appreciated the conversion of 2 pounds of flour to standard cup measurements.
Thank you!
PS. Could the recipe for the dipping sauce be provided too? The illustration looks simply delicious!
Faith, I believe it would be about 7 1/2 cups of Flour, though I will go back and check the original recipe when I unpack the cookbook.
As for the dipping sauce, I believe it was just Soy Sauce and chopped Scallions. I'll re-post if I find something different.
The dumplings were a lot easier than they look; just use a food processor to work the dough if you can. Good luck!
I ate some Green Tea Dumplings at friends house at Thanksgiving. They were scrumptious! So glad to find your recipe, will definitely try them. Thanks
Southernbellexx2
Post a Comment