Homemade Dumplings

One of my favorite Sichuan Cuisines is Zhong Shuijiao, as in "Zhong Dumplings", which is a famous local Chengdu dish. Since I have been missing the spicy and sweet flavor of that special rich sauce for dumplings, I have decided to make it myself here. It’s not difficult to make dumplings as the wrappers are easy to get in any of those Asian markets here, but if you want to make the dumplings from the wrappers, then it might take a couple of hours. So I chose the easier way. After I bought the wrappers, I mixed the grinded pork with one egg and some black peppers. Mom used to teach me how to make dumplings and I started to remember the exact shape she used to be proud of making after I wrapped about 20 dumplings on the tray. If you have several people in the house who have time for that, then I would recommend making the wrappers by yourself because the wrappers you buy would be very dry and thin. Anyway, the tricky part for this special ingredient dumplings lies in the sauce which you cannot buy anywhere else. Basically, the red pepper oil has to have the flavor of sesames, star anise and Chinese peppers at least, and then the compound soy sauce should be premade with sugar, brown sugar and star anise at least. There should be more ingredients in them like cinnamons and cloves or stuff like that, but I just didn’t bother to find them since you cannot lose the major flavor of it with those ingredients I used. It takes about 10 minutes to boil the dumplings and after pouring 3 tablespoons of red pepper oil and compound soy sauce respectively on the dumplings in the bowl, it’s ready to serve. It tastes AMAZING! No kidding!