How Dumplings are Made in 10 Countries

[upbeat music]

You are about to see-

10 chefs from-

10 different countries-

[Group] Making dumplings.

There are a lot of different types of dumplings in China.

One of the my favorite is this Sichuan style dumplings.

The flavor is very complex, yet so well balanced.

So I want to show everyone how to make this dumplings.

First, I'm gonna show you how to make chili oil.

Neutral oil, here I'm simmering aromatics

and spices like ginger scallion,

garlic, bay leaf, and then star anise.

Once they are slightly charred,

remove the aromatics and spices from the oil.

And I'm going to reheat the oil

until almost smoking.

Some chili flakes I made

with Sichuan chilies.

These are called er jing tiao

and they have a well balanced spiciness and aroma.

In the chili flakes we're going to add

ground Sichuan peppercorn powder.

I have some white sesame seeds.

Pour the oil over the chili flakes.

The chili oil looks a little bit dark brown,

but let it sit overnight and the red color will show

and the flavor actually will be

a little bit better the next day.

I'm gonna show you how to make the filling.

We have ground pork here, about 30% fat.

I'm going to add some seasoning.

Salt, soy sauce, cooking wine.

The wine will remove the gaminess of the meat dishes

and adds extra flavor.

White pepper powder

and Sichuan pepper corn powder to make this extra Sichuan.

MSG. And then sesame oil.

I also have some ginger scallion water.

I'm going to slowly add the water to the meat

to add extra moisture.

You don't want to over stir it.

We'll bruise the scallions

and it will turn the scallions to a bitter taste.

So normally we'll soak them in water

and then just use the flavored water for the filling.

Do this for about 10, 20 minutes.

We want to recombine the ground meat

to make the texture a little bit firm and bouncy.

I know it's almost ready

when the texture becomes very pasty.

Put a little bit meat in the center.

I'm gonna moist the wrapper.

And this is a very easy way of wrapping dumplings.

Seal it up while pushing the side of the wrappers

up a little bit

and it'll create beautiful natural pleats.

All right, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Eight is an auspicious number. Let's cook them.

I'm going to add the dumplings into boiling water.

And you want to add the dumplings one by one

so they don't stick together.

And also you want to stir the water right away.

Use the back of your spoon

and gently so you don't break the wrappers.

Once the water is boiling, turn it to low to let it simmer.

Five minutes is up. Dumplings are cooked.

I know they're cooked

because they are floating on top of the water.

And also the wrapper is translucent.

We're going to add some flavor, soy sauce first,

and chili oil, and a kick,

we're gonna add some pureed garlic on top.

Before you serve,

mix everything together and enjoy.

[smooth jazz music]

It's perfect.

Manti is a very simple dumpling

made of ground meat, served with a yogurt sauce and butter.

When my mom asked me what she should make for me,

this is what I demand.

I say, Just make manti.

The filling is very simple.

Ground beef, finely chopped onions.

In Turkish cuisine, parsley goes into everything.

Some black pepper and some salt.

And I'm just gonna mix this.

This dough, very similar to pasta dough.

It has eggs and also water.

It's a tough dough.

To roll the dough,

I'm gonna use this very thin roller.

Name of this tool is oklava.

In Turkey, this is used for making all sort of things

but mostly like very thin roll doughs

like baklava or filo dough.

This is something I saw my mom do all the time.

So she rolls the dough and then the dough rolls out

so, so even.

This is an amazing technique.

The next step is cutting this dough.

So I'm gonna use this tool I have, which is not traditional.

This is a tool that we use in bakery.

My mom would use just a knife, but again, she's the best.

I'm not that skilled.

I'm gonna cut these tiny squares.

You know, smaller the dumplings, more skilled you are.

I made a tiny batch for this video.

In a household, this would be as big as this board.

This dish is a very good example of Turkish cuisine.

Everything is very labor intensive, kind of small,

absolutely worth it though.

I like to hold them square, pinch the sides together

and then meet them in the middle.

It would be like an assembly line

where my mom fill it with the filling

and then me, my sisters and my father

would fold the dumplings.

We cook manti just like cooking pasta.

This is gonna take about five minutes maybe.

Once the dumplings start floating,

that's my indicator that they are close to being ready.

This goes right into the plate.

I do want a little bit of the liquid

so you don't need to drain the whole thing.

Manti is served with garlic yogurt sauce.

I'm gonna put on top, very generous.

This is a butter sauce with tomato paste.

So this is just melted butter.

Once the butter starts bubbling,

you add the tomato paste and that's it.

Very simple sauce.

I'd like to put a little spice.

So this is just crushed red peppers.

Finally, anything I put garlic yogurt on, I would try mints.

Let's see.

[calm music]

I nailed it. Not as good as my mom's though.

I'm saying this to please my mom.

I feel like if somebody makes this dish to you,

they love you.

My dumpling is going to be hitokuchi gyoza,

translated to English as one bite dumpling.

It's very common one in Fukuoka side,

which is southern side of Japan's

traditional way of eating gyoza.

And this is my personal favorite as well.

The structure is very simple. This is a ground pork.

I like to mix and knead it a little bit

so that it gets a little sticky.

And I'll put cabbage, onions.

Once incorporated, season everything,

starting with ginger and garlic, touch of sesame oil, MSG,

white pepper and salt.

And last not least, this is just a liquid mix

with the oyster sauce, mirin, sake and soy sauce.

We're gonna go with a wheat wrapper.

Just, I think it's more convenient.

First of all, just put the water around the wrapper.

Scoop a little bit, not too much.

Yeah, that's near the edge.

Pinch, tuck, press,

pinch, tuck, press, pinch, tuck, press.

It's tightly sealed so that when you cook it,

juice is not gonna come up.

Season with just a touch of sesame oil.

And right now pan is not heating up.

The first piece of gyoza, boom.

All the gyoza is gonna be cooked at the same time

and it's gonna be on a plate like a round circle

so that not only you but then your friends, your family,

they will share that plate.

On a low heat, I'm cooking at the bottom of the Gyoza

so that it's gonna have a foundation.

But what I'm looking for is the bottom is crispy

but inside is juicy.

And then you got the water potato starch mixture,

not too much 'cause if you put it too much,

the wing is gonna be like really green,

and it takes it a lot of time to cook off

and that's when gyoza itself is gonna start burning out, so.

Once you start hearing this drier sound,

gonna take off your lid

and wait for this to evaporate more so that you're gonna get

crispy wing.

Once the lid's off,

and then you see these bubbles are getting larger and larger

and now it starts getting smaller all of a sudden

because there's not enough water.

Now this is the time you're gonna do max heat

and finish it.

You put the plate on,

then...

Gyoza desu.

This is Japanese sampling.

Hear the sound?

Sounds nice.

Dipping sauce.

[calm music]

Mm. Mm.

I think I nailed it. Yeah, absolutely.

The dish that I'm gonna be making today

are called ukadiche modak.

It's something that I grew up eating.

It's also the offering that we make

to Lord Ganesh.

Made once during the year.

I'm very excited to be making this today.

First thing that I have with me is a dough called the ukad,

made out of rice flour, milk and water.

These are not like wontons

or dumplings where thinner they are the better they are.

Take the dough ball in your hand

and then you use the force of your palms

to get like a really nice circular shape.

And then you just use your thumb, press into it

while making a cup shape, keeping the edges a little thicker

than the center of the dough.

This is where it gets a little intricate.

I'm trying to do as many as I can,

leaving a little bit of space right in the middle

for that filling to go in.

The filling that goes inside is called a saran.

It's made with fresh grated coconuts, some jaggery,

poppy seeds, toasted cashews and almonds.

And the point is to get all those pleats

and all those petals that you formed onto the middle.

Once you have the basic thing formed,

make like a tip out of it

as pointy as you can

so it doesn't open when it's steaming up.

Traditionally, whenever we make these,

we always make them in sets of 11, 21, 51, 101.

'Cause you never make an even number.

That's just the way that they're offered to God.

We're gonna get ready for steaming,

but what I'm gonna do before that

is I'm gonna take some water.

I'm just gonna put it right on this tip

and I'm gonna put strand or two of saffron

right on top of these.

It symbolizes that this is an offering made to God.

We are letting God know that we care about you

and we're very happy that you've come and you visited us.

I have a nice pot of water which has been boiling.

Traditionally, they're put on banana leaves and then steam.

Gotta put a little bit of ghee on them

and start putting them into the steamer.

And that's it.

It's been eight minutes we've had our modaks steaming.

But traditionally what I would do

is I would first offer one to God

and then I would start eating it.

But I'm just gonna do that in my mind.

Take the tip off.

Just make like a little nice cavity in this.

I have some melted warm ghee. I'm gonna have my first bite.

This takes me back straight home.

I haven't had these in years.

It's just these different textures coming in together.

Outstanding.

Khinkali is a dish the Georgians are very proud of.

Every region makes their own version of it.

This is gonna be kalakuri style khinkali

made with beef, pork, onions, touch of herbs,

and wild caraway.

We have here already ground beef and pork

that has already mixed caraway.

You can use regular caraway if you don't have wild caraway.

You want some fat for your meat.

Fat is what gives an extra juice and the flavor.

We are gonna take this finely chopped cilantro,

some of these onions, salt, black pepper,

and crushed red pepper.

This water is what helps develop the soup

that comes out of the dumpling when you take the first bite.

You can have this for lunch,

but you wouldn't make this at home for lunch.

You would go to the khinkali house

and have like a dozen, with beer possibly.

This is a basic flour water salt dough.

It's made with cold water

because you don't want your flour

to start cooking as you're making it.

The stronger the better

because you get more shiny dough,

you get a lot more broth in it.

So you make full folds.

There's a saying that this had 19 dimples,

which was related to some pre-Christian song tradition.

Slowly start bringing this together,

almost like a flower that starts opening up.

Push up, sort of like a lengthening the neck.

And you can feel it in your hand

that it's ready to be twisted.

And done.

Hot water with general serving of salt.

Mix the water to create this vortex.

And you start slowly lowering the dumplings.

You want them to move around.

You don't want them to stick.

Fresh khinkali of this size

takes about seven to eight minutes.

You can see them start floating up and turning upside down.

30 seconds to go,

and before we take this out, we pour a cold water on top

to get that foam off.

And also it makes it more shiny.

They're still puffed up.

They're gonna tip off in a second.

Garnish it with our spice mix with summer savory

and a little bit of a red pepper for extra kick.

Usually it goes on top,

but I prefer to put it around the plate

so you can dip your dumpling in it

for as much spice and flavor as you want.

You cannot eat the khinkali with a fork and knife.

You eat it with your hand.

So you grab it from the top, you turn it upside down,

take a little bite, drink the broth,

and then you eat the rest.

These are the best dumplings in the world.

I'm making Ukrainian dumpling, which we call varenyky.

Varenyky are very important in Ukraine. They are soul food.

We eat varenyky often at family gathering

or at any holidays.

First step for making the filling,

you are boiling the potatoes.

After they boiled, you mash them and you add farmer cheese

and fried onion to it.

Farmer cheese and mashed potato,

the most traditional filling you can get.

Everybody in Ukraine,

almost everybody make their own farmer cheese.

So it's like ingredient you always have in your fridge.

The dough, what my mom taught me to make, it's eggs, milk,

water, and flour, little bit salt.

It's gonna take around a couple of minutes

until desired thinness.

That's why Ukrainian women are so strong.

It's not easy to roll.

I'm looking about for two millimeters in thickness.

It's very helpful to have a metal cutter

when we make 8,000 varenyky a day.

But at home we usually use a glass.

And now we're gonna be filling varenyky.

The filling, make sure it's not too much.

Stretch the dough a little bit and just pinch it together.

The water is boiling. Season it with a salt.

Now carefully place varenyky inside the boiling water,

but be very gentle.

Gonna boil up to five minutes.

When they float, boil them another four or five minutes.

In Ukraine we eat varenyky with caramelized onions

and sour cream.

The more the better.

Amazing filling.

[calm music]

Delicious. Just like Mama's.

The popular dumplings in Indonesia, we call it siomay.

Historically from Chinese cuisine, assimilated Indonesia

through Chinese traders.

Indonesian eat siomay any time of the day.

There's a street cart version of siomay.

They walk around with a huge steamer

and they come to everybody's houses.

Siomay! Siomay!

Oh, it brings me back. Yeah.

This is Spanish mackerel.

Next we do ice to help with the texture.

To stay chewy, not to break apart.

Garlic powder, I like it garlicky.

Onion powder, black pepper, salt.

[blender whirring]

In Indonesian, we call this labu siam.

Here it's called chayote.

And I'm very happy I can find it anywhere

because in Hispanic recipe, people use chayote also.

Scallions, fish sauce, a little bit,

brings very umami flavor.

This is very important ingredient.

Tapioca flour gives chewy texture to the siomay.

Let's get dirty.

Siomay is not only a dumpling, but it's a whole meal.

So we're not only gonna put it in the wrapper,

but also put it on the other ingredients,

to the potato and the tofu.

For the siomay with wonton, I do this to make a base,

to put on the wonton,

each corner meet like this, and then another.

And then we put a little bit of carrots.

The next one.

The siomay are done.

They're going to the steamer for around 35 to 40 minutes.

It's beautiful

and smells like the food cart from Jakarta.

Potato, tofu, the siomay.

We use peanut sauce on many, many things,

on rice, snacks, fritters,

almost anything.

Gonna drizzle sweet soy sauce.

In Indonesia, we eat siomay with fork or spoon.

[upbeat music]

Oh yeah, it's perfectly steamed. So good.

Proud of myself.

[Wulan chuckling]

So the dumpling in Algeria is called the bourek.

It's mostly based out of filo dough.

But I like to just do it more like a ravioli,

which is kind of similar as a dumpling.

We use the very thin semolina with some olive oil.

The olive oil will help stretch the dough easily.

Warm water with the semolina make it a quick dough.

So this filling is already cooked.

I used ground lamb and I added cumin, salt, pepper.

We boil some egg and add it on with also some potato

and parsley and coriander.

That's the traditional bourek filling.

So I'm going to use that fork to lay out the dough.

I'm using water to stretch the dough a little bit more,

and then I close it with the forks.

We are now ready to fry our beautiful dumpling.

Low, medium, high.

Add some olive oil, those cuties to the pot.

It doesn't have to be so hot. It's meant to be crispy.

We don't want this to overcooked.

I'm adding the chicken broth to have a little bit

of [indistinct] into the dough.

[pan sizzling]

Okay, so we are ready to serve our dumplings.

So I think some harissa mayo.

Harissa is a spicy red pepper that we make in house.

They're very common in Algeria,

Tunisia, Morocco.

We garnish with parsley, cilantro.

Dip the dumpling into the harissa mayo.

[calm music]

Mm, so good.

The true is the French people don't really do dumplings.

The closest one that you can find, it's Raviole de Royan.

It's a tiny pasta

that's stuffed with cottage cheese and parsley.

They're very delicious.

I'm gonna show you how I make my versions

of those [indistinct] raviole.

At home, we usually buy them frozen.

We separate them like this.

And we're gonna cook them as a traditional pasta.

Start them in a salty boiling water.

We're gonna reduce a chicken stock while they're cooking.

French love that chicken stock.

Make things better.

To make it a little bit more interesting,

we're gonna add a bit of black truffle.

So now that my dumplings are raised, I can remove them.

And we're gonna add butter directly.

Little sea salt, black pepper.

Just gonna finish it with little chive,

a chive make everything taste better.

And voila.

[smooth jazz music]

Beautiful balance between the cheese inside

and the butter and the truffle.

Amazing.

There are so many dumplings in Korea.

Most classic, the most traditional one,

I believe is a gulim mandu,

which is a meat dumpling.

It packs all the flavor or the punch. It tastes clean.

I think it's one of my favorite.

I love making this steamed dumpling.

Vegetable ingredients first.

This one is a Korean chives. It's called buchu.

And this one is just a leek.

I just cook it until it's little tender.

Cabbage, it's quickly been blanched.

Tofu, also squeezed out

until it's like the soul of the ingredients.

Bean sprout.

This also has been blanched and then just squished.

Minced garlic, a little bit of ginger.

And then pork gelatin.

Took me two, three days to make it.

I just boiled with the pork neck bones, pork leg bones,

and pork feet.

And then yondu,

which is like a Korean like soy essence.

Flavor bomb, you can think.

Black pepper. And then soy sauce.

These vegetables are to create that crunch texture

to it as you eat it.

Cooking beforehand these vegetables,

you don't wanna cook it too long,

otherwise it becomes a little too mushy.

This pork is mostly pork shoulder.

I think pork shoulder has a very good fat to meat ratio.

I like to keep flavor inside, rather too dry.

This is a dumpling wrap that I get from the store.

Make sure you get a good chunk of filling inside here.

If you don't put much in it,

it's gonna just taste like a flour and dough.

And you don't want that.

You want a lot of flavors.

Water around it, kind of thinking it's like

you're putting a glue around it.

When you're folding it, make sure you get all the air out

and make sure all the filling gets spread out evenly.

Add another glue to it, to the edge of the skin.

And then, make it into circular shape.

And that's how you make Korean dumpling.

Before you steam it.

The water is hot.

I'm gonna put the steamer inside, trap the steam,

and then once it traps,

I'm gonna put the dumpling in there

and I'm gonna start cooking.

This is just a pad so the dumpling doesn't get stuck.

Steam it for about 10 minutes and it should be ready.

In restaurants, people actually serve the dumplings

in a basket and I'm gonna just eat it the way it is.

And this is a soy sauce and a vinegar and,

once that's stuck...

Yep. That packs all the flavors, juice.

Wow.

The flavor is, wow. It's very delicious.

These are the best dumplings in the world.

Delicious. You have to try it.

This is my favorite order.

Well, you guys want to try or no?

Watching a six foot five guy

holding the tiniest dumplings in the world.