Vegetarian Dumplings

I am a big fan of the chinese style vegetarian dumpling. I have Carolyn to thank for this obsession, as I had never tried them prior to her introducing me to them many years ago.

I have since tried them in a few different restaurants, and I've found that quite a few of them refuse to fry the vegetarian ones. In my opinion they're not as nice if they're not fried. You don't get the crispiness that makes them oh so good!!

So my favourites are from Shanghai Village in China Town. They cost something like $5.50 for 15 of them. They are fabbo!!! And yes, they're fried!!!

Anyway a while back I decided to try making these delightful little morsels. My main problem is that I don't know much about Chinese Cuisine (apart from eating it!!).

And of course I'm too lazy or too silly to google these things to find the right way to do them. DOH!!!

So i went out and stupidly bought won ton skins. Made the dumplings, and they were so tough!!! They took ages to cook and they still had a very rubbery horrible texture. Of course my hubby ate them anyway.

Yesterday I tried again with Gow Gee Pastry, and they were fab. I decided to make them again today with a few modifications. Apart from the shape not being a true dumpling shape, they are so gooooood!!!!

Ingredients
140gms Chinese Broccoli
140gms Firm Tofu (I used Silken by mistake, best to use just regular firm tofu)
100gms Water Chestnuts
50gms fresh Shitake Mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
5 Spring onions
1 large egg
1 tablespoon of flour
1.5 packs of Gee Gow Pastry
Salt to taste

Method

1. Cut off the leaves from the chinese brocolli, shred the leaves and chop the stalks coarsely. Place chopped stalks in the food processor, with the tofu, egg, crushed garlic and flour. Process till all thoroughly mixed.
2. Chop spring onions, mushrooms and water chestnuts, add to mixture above, and pulse a couple of times to combine. You don't want to lose the texture of the veggies, so don't be tempted to process them too much. Add salt to taste.
3. Fill each pastry round with about 1 tsp of filling. Moisten the edges with water and seal firmly. Set aside until you have all of them filled.
   
4. Prepare a pan with boiling water, and steam your dumplings in batches of 5 or so. Drain them and fry them right away in a small amount of oil. You only fry one side.
5. Serve hot with dumpling dipping sauce. I bought Lee Kum Kee Seasoned Soy Sauce for Dumpling, it is delicious. Once this runs out, I am going to attempt to make my own.

Makes about 40 dumplings