The long-awaited dumpling post!
There are many different kinds of dumplings, but here I’m going to concentrate solely on the Korean kind, called mandu. Here are some little tidbits of information regarding these treats:
- Wahng Mandu are ‘king’ dumplings about the size of your palm with a slightly thicker and fluffier skin (called ‘pi’)
- When served on their own, they are usually served either steamed or fried. Steamed dumplings are called ‘jjin mandu‘ and fried ones are called ‘goon mandu‘, but they are both still mandu.
- Another way these dumplings can be served is in a slightly thickened soup with rice cakes (dduk) called ‘dduk mandu gook‘.
- Whilst the fillings are usually similar/the same, there is a distinction drawn between regular mandu and kimchi mandu (mandu which has also got diced kimchi in the filling)
This recipe is purely for the filling as we no longer make the skins ourselves - whilst my grandmother used to handroll hundreds of these, you can get packets of fresh dumpling skins from the freezer of most Chinese grocery stores and we find that these work fine. As with any recipe, you’ll need to adapt it to your own tastes, and the recipe below will turn out roughly 60~80 dumplings, so you may want a friend on hand to help with the filling and folding part 
Now, onto the recipe!
Korean dumpling (Mandu) recipe
Ingredients (makes approx 60~80)
500g pork mince
300g dried tofu
2x medium-sized eggs
100g garlic chives
1 heaped tsp minced ginger
4-6 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup chinese rice wine
250g mung bean shoots
6 large leaves of napa cabbage (also called chinese cabbage) *
2-3 tsp beef dashida (substitute with powdered beef boullion)
1-2 tbsp dark sesame oil (Asian sesame oil)
1 pk dumpling skins (preferably gowzee/gowgee or gyoza)
1 egg white, lightly beaten
2x non-stick baking trays
Muslin cloth/bag
* To make kimchi mandu, replace the napa cabbage with 1 cup kimchi, then get rid of the liquid and chop up as per step 2.
1. Blanch the mung bean shoots till slightly softened (but still retains majority of its crunch), then squeeze out as much liquid as possible using the muslin cloth/bag. By working in small batches (1/2 to 1 handful at a time), you will be able to get rid of more liquid effectively. Once you’ve finished, set these aside for now.
My brother squeezing the liquid from the blanched mung bean shoots
2. Blanch the napa cabbage (make sure that the thickest part of the leaf is soft enough to poke with a fork without too much resistance). Squeeze out the liquid from the cabbage using the muslin (remember, smaller quantities work better), then roughly chop into 1cm pieces and set aside.
3. Thoroughly wash the garlic chives to get rid of all dirt, then remove any wilted or yellow bits and finely chop the rest into pieces no more than about 5mm in length. Set these aside with the mung bean sprouts.
4. Mix together the pork mince, ginger, garlic, rice wine, dashida and sesame oil and rest for 30 minutes. This is in order to give the meat time to absorb the other flavours and lose it’s ‘porky’ smell.
5. While the pork is resting, mince the dried tofu using a ricer or food mill (you can also use a potato masher, but make sure you get the tofu finely minced).
Dried tofu is just tofu that has been strained - it is extremely firm in texture (as firm as well-cooked meat) and has the least liquid of all tofus available. The surface is usually rough as it retains the pattern from the muslin used to strain it.
6. Combine the mince mixture, mung bean shoots, cabbage, tofu, chives, eggs and add salt and pepper to taste, then mix thoroughly till everything is evenly and well combined.
The mixture should be fairly dry (moist but not very wet), and well combined so that every teaspoon has an even amount of chives, cabbage, tofu and mince.
7. Take one dumpling skin and place in your hand, then take 1 tsp of mixture and place it in the middle:
These are the skins I like to use. I find that these skins taste a lot less floury and tastier than gyoza skins.
The mixture sitting on a dumpling skin in my hand
8a. Dip your finger in the beaten egg white, then run it around the outer edge of the dumpling skin, then pinch it together in the middle so it resembles a tube:
8b. Right next to the joined section, grab a bit of dumpling skin from the edge facing you and fold it over and join it to the other edge. Repeat this action two more times till the side of your dumpling looks like this:
8c. Do the same to the other side of the dumpling, working from the middle to the outside, and then the dumpling should look like this:
9a. If the previous method of folding seems too fiddly, you can try this simpler method. Once you’ve run egg white around the outer edge (step 7), fold the two sides together to form a half circle:
The half circle, as demonstrated by my brother
9b. Dab a little egg white on one of the outer corners of the dumpling, then fold the two edges together (the bit with egg white should be under the other edge):
10. Place the dumpling onto a non-stick baking tray and once you’ve filled the tray, pop them into the freezer and start placing them onto the other tray. Leave the dumplings on the tray till frozen solid, then remove from the tray and divide into plastic bags (1-2 serves per bag).
To make the dipping sauce for mandu, use the following:
2 tbsp white/rice vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp dried red chilli powder (gochugaru)
1/4 tsp sesame oil
Combine and serve either drizzled over the dumplings or on the side.
As the dumplings are quite time-consuming to make, it is a good idea to make a large batch (this recipe will give you quite a few) and keep them in the freezer for when you need a quick meal. They can be cooked straight out of the freezer:
- To steam them, cut out a round of baking paper that will fit into your steamer, and poke it full of holes. Line your steaming basket and then operate as per usual with the frozen dumplings (or the fresh ones if you’ve just made them!)
- To fry them, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a non-stick frying pan that has a lid, then fry till golden. Once they’re golden, pour about 1/4 cup of water into the frying pan (you want them to be resting in the water, not swimming in it) and put the lid on, cooking till the water has absorbed.
- The “dduk mandu gook” (rice cake & dumpling soup) recipe you’ll have to check back for. My camera has actually died (this is a very old post) and I can’t take any pictures till I purchase a new one - which won’t be till later this month if I decide to go with the Nikon p5000!
Technorati Tags: mandu, Korean cuisine, recipe, dumplings, Korean
People who have tried this recipe:
- Kristine at Web-Goddess
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Comments
Tanna - It’s not too hard, and I think they taste miles better than anything store-bought! And it was good of my brother to do the grunt work, I reckon you should ask your sons to step in at that stage to help out too 
Niceeeeeeeeeee!!! I love dumplings… my favorite ones are “Shanghai pork dumpling”. I got a book for preparing dumplings from a friend from S’pore and I am trying to make them.
Ciao.
Very interesting. I’ve never seenor heard of this type of Korean dumplings. There are actually a few Korean restaurants here but I probably didn’t recognize the name on the menu.
Your step-by-step photos are great!
Great post Ellie! A Korean friend made a bunch of these for our dinner once and they were some of the best dumplings I’ve tasted! Your step by step recipe and photos give me the confidence to make them successfully.
Great pictures! I love dumplings and normally buy the same wrappers you do! Of course, now my husband wants to make his own wrappers, so dumpling making is an all day proccess! Bring a friend, indeed!
Oh Ellie, I love duk mandu gook! And I never put the little pleats in mine when I make them, yours look so good. When my dad makes his mom’s, it is with tofu and kimchi, my mother’s is without. They were mandu rivals!
Step-by-step posts are the best! I tell ya, reading foodblogs this afternoon is making me want to run out to the grocery store and revamp the menu for the week.
That little dumpling looks so cute too. Expertly done.
Orchidea - Oooh, I’ve gotta say that I quite like those Shanghai pork dumplings too! I hope you do make them and blog the result
Paz - Hehehe, I’d send ‘em over but I don’t think they’d taste too great by the time they got to NY 
Kalyn - To be honest, there aren’t a great variety of dumpling fillings and if you just ask for dumplings at your local Korean restaurant then they’ll bring out something similar to this
Or, you could make them at home to your own tastes 
Bruno - I make these once every few months with my family and we turn it into an occasion where everyone helps out! I hope that you do give these a try and that they live up to your memory of your friends cooking
Kat - Thanks hon!
Rachel - Oh my god, I can’t believe you can actually be bothered making all those wrappers! I did it once with my grandma before she passed away and I’m really not keep on repeating the process!
Barbara - Yup, just the Korean version of dumplings
Helen - Aww shucks, thanks hon!
Callipygia - Hehehe, duk mandu gook is my faaaavourite winter dish, so warming and filling! The pleats are a relatively new thing for me, I never used to bother shaping them but the last few times we made them I thought I’d give it a try
Ari - They’re not half bad, eh? And I sooo know that feeling, believe you me!
Neil - Always nice to have a pair of helping hands
Peabody - Aww, thanks hon! And it does seem a bit fiddly at first, but once you get used to the motions it’s really not too bad
Ivonne - Hehehe, thanks hon!
This is my first time checking out your blog. Wow, how fantastic and informative.
I have just recently tried dumplings for the first time and yours just look amazing.
Ellie, thank you so much for visual step-by-step guide–it’s so helpful! I wish I had something like this the first time I made dumplings (and summer rolls). Thanks for your time and effort–I really appreciate it. Ooh, I can’t wait to try this recipe!
I love this, you are awsome. However, your brother looks like he is squeezing out an internal organ. Are you sure you are not doing some donor work on the side? Perhaps you can come back to work instead? We miss you.
Wow, you made such a good looking mandu! I am not very good at folding. I am very impressed with your work, Ellie. Good job!!
I actually just made some dumplings last week with my friend and we made the skin from scratch. It was awesome. I love dumplings! Must give your’s a try because I don’t think I’ve had korean mandu before. The ones at Grandma Kim Chi tastes like normal gyozas to me.
They look like perfect little purses! I’ll bet they are way yummy too.. I heart dumplings.
Beautiful tutorial, schweetie! I’ve printed it out for future reference.
xoxo
Shawnda - Thanks hon
Cheryl - Thanks for stopping by I’m glad you like it!
Susan - Aww shucks, no worries sunshine! I hope you like the recipe!
Krystyn - Hallo chicken As for the donor work *cough cough* you don’t need your entire liver, right? Miss you too hon!
Sue - Ahh, it’s thanks to yeeears of practice I gotta thank my mom for forcing me to sit down and fold thousands of these since I was a kid!
I-Ling - Oh my god, your dedication frightens me! We generally make about 100 - 150 dumplings in a sitting, I can’t imagine how long it’d take if we had to roll the skins as well! As for the Korean mandu… all I can say is that my ma’s recipe is better than any that I’ve had at a restaurant (not that I’m biased or anything!)
Lisa - Hehehe, thanks hon
Gilly - Glad you liked it
Ellie, you rock!!! I luuuuuuuuuuuuvvvve dumplings! Your korean type sounds a bit similar to a northern chinese kind, but any kind can make me drool!
The one wrap by your mom looks so adorable, although I have to admit, the regular wrapping gives me the best satisfactory bite Must come back to this recipe when I get all the ingredients ready!
And Nikon… yoo-hoooooo!
For the uninitiated, wrapping the dumplings properly can be a bit daunting. You’ve created an amazing step-by-step tutorial!
Alicia - Thanks hon And though these are time consuming, it’s really not too bad if you have a good movie to watch during the making of
Gattina - Hehehe, thanks
Mooncrazy - They’re the best freezer-fillers for a quick meal
Jules - Thanks hon
Mary - Aww shucks, thanks sunshine
Jasmine - My pleasure
I love the step by step you gave in this dumpling post! I just discovered you and will be coming back! I just started a recipe blog in addition to my regular blog and you have given me something to aspire to!
http://quaffynosh.blogspot.com
Fantastic Ellie, from you pictures I think I could do that!
Great that you got your brother to do the manly job!!
I think those must be delish!!!