My friend Mari is a brilliant cook with a knack to create flavour bombs out of the simplest ingredients and being invited for dinner is always exciting as she offers us glimpses into Japanese home cooking I have no knowledge of. She showed me photos of her lazy dumplings the other day, gave me some pointers and I had to try them immediately. These are so good that I have renamed them Mari’s Genius Dumplings.
The method could not be easier and if, like me, you are pretty hopeless when it comes to folding dumpling wrappers Mari’s recipe is genius. You can watch my step by step video here :
As you can see in the video you place wonton wrappers in a pan, overlapping each. Place a dollop of filling on top and cover with another round of wrappers. I gently push the wrappers down but you don’t have to have them stick. Place the pan on the heat, add a quarter cup or so of water and place a lid on top. Let the dumplings steam until the water has evaporated – about 5 minutes or so. Remove the lid and drizzle with sesame or canola oil and fry over a medium heat until the bottoms are crispy. By this time the filling should be cooked as well. Place a large plate on top of the pan and flip over so that the crispy side of the dumplings face up on the plate. Use a pizza cutter to cut the ring of dumplings in portions and serve with a dipping sauce. I also drizzle the dumplings with some soy sauce, sesame seeds and sliced spring onion to make it look pretty. And voila, Mari’s Lazy Dumplings are ready in less than 20 minutes! Serve with some Chili Crisp on the side.
The filling is based on a fab shortcut recipe from Suzi Lee’s Simply Chinese and uses pork sausage as a flavourful starting point, meaning you need only a few extra ingredients for a delicious filling. And depending on the size of your pan you would probably repeat the recipe twice to use up all the wrappers and filling.
I hope you enjoy this recipe for Mari’s Lazy Dumplings. Remember to follow and share your pics with me on Instagram. I recently spoke about my foray into ceramics and my photography career on A Table in the Corner podcast. Click here to have a listen.
Mari's Lazy Dumplings
Ingredients
- Filling :
- 250 g pork sausage meat removed from the casings
- 1 large spring onion finely chopped
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 garlic clove finely grated
- 1 thumb ginger finely grated
- ½ tsp ground white pepper
- 30 round wonton wrappers amount depends on size of pan
- sesame or canola oil
- Garnish :
- soy sauce
- sesame seeds
- sliced spring onion
Instructions
- Mix all the filling ingredients and set aside
- Place wonton wrappers in a non-stick pan in a single layer, each overlapping by about a third. It will depend on the size of the pan how many - see the video in the post
- Place a dollop of filling on top and cover with another round of wrappers
- Gently push the wrappers down but you don't have to have them stick
- Place the pan over a medium heat, add a quarter cup or so of water and place a lid on top
- Let the dumplings steam until the water has evaporated - about 5 minutes or so
- Remove the lid and drizzle with sesame or canola oil and fry over a medium high heat until the bottoms are crispy and the filling is cooked
- Place a large plate on top of the pan and flip over so that the crispy side of the dumplings face up on the plate
- Use a pizza cutter to cut the ring of dumplings in portions
- Drizzle the dumplings with some soy sauce, sesame seeds and sliced spring onion as garnish
- Repeat the process until all the wrappers and filling is used
