One of the perks of living in Beijing was having the various options of delicious frozen dumplings from grocery stores. Dumplings were a must-have in my fridge when I was living there. Whenever I felt too lazy to cook, I simply boiled a dozen dumplings and then had dinner ready in 10 minutes. Unlike the frozen dumplings (or potstickers) you can find in the US, Chinese frozen dumplings use a nicer dough that resembles homemade dumplings with a juicy filling. The filling is usually quite large, almost like a small meatball. One of my favorite frozen dumpling brands is Wanchai Ferry (湾仔码头), a local brand owned by General Mills that sells dozens of flavors that are only available in China. Those frozen dumplings were so good that sometimes I needed to suppress the urge of writing to General Mill and demanding them to sell this line of product in the US!
Although the most popular type is pork dumplings in northern China, my favorite flavor from Wanchai Ferry is beef and corn dumplings. Today I’m sharing this beef dumpling recipe with you, so you can also get to know how good they are! Making beef dumplings is a bit more challenging than pork dumplings. Ground beef is leaner than pork, and the filling tends to end up dry and tough. In this recipe I introduced a great trick – blend liquid into the ground beef to create a juicy and flavorful dumpling filling.
Just like injecting marinade into ribs before grilling, beating flavorful broth into ground meat will keep it juicy during cooking and create a better taste. I used chicken stock in this recipe. Alternatively, you can also use ginger and/or green onion infused water.
To create herb infused water, finely chop a thumb of ginger (and/or 2 to 3 of green onions), place in a bowl, and cover with 1/4 cup hot water. Let steep for a hour or so to make an aromatic tea. Filter and discard the herbs before using the mixture in the recipe. This method is perfect to create more delicate dumpling fillings (such as shrimp dumplings) when you want the nice aromatic flavor without having small bits of ginger in it.
This recipe is less intimidating than my other dumpling recipes because you can prep most of the ingredients by using a food processor. It is one of those dumpling recipes that I feel comfortable to make even during the week. I used Japanese gyoza wrappers in this recipe. They are thinner than dumplings wrappers and work great, especially when you want to create pot stickers instead of steamed dumplings. If you want to use homemade dumpling wrappers, you can refer to my steamed / potsticker dumpling dough recipe, or the water boiled dumpling dough recipe.
I recorded a short video to show you how easy it is to cook this dish. Find more videos to learn Chinese cooking on my YouTube channel!
Need more recipes for delicious dumpling fillings? Check out these pork and cabbage dumplings, my mom’s best lamb dumplings, and vegetarian dumplings.
