Dumpling

• 1. Introduction

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  Dumplings appear in a poem written roughly 1,700 years ago by a Chinese scholar, in a verse form called a fu. That poem is one of the earliest mentions of the food. Archaeologists have also pulled preserved dumplings out of the ground at Turfan, in Xinjiang, China, and those are more than 1,000 years old.

  Dumplings are a broad family of dishes built from pieces of cooked dough, often wrapped around a filling. The dough might start with bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes. The filling might be meat, fish, tofu, cheese, vegetables or some mixture of them. Cooks in many world cuisines make them, by many different methods.

  That range raises some questions. Where does a dumpling end and some other dish begin? Why do some cultures serve them on particular days, while others once guarded them as a luxury? And how did a humble lump of dough find its way into so many kitchens?

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• 2. Defining the Dumpling

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  By the 17th century, English speakers were already using the word dumpling for a small lump of dough cooked by simmering or steaming. Over time the meaning stretched to include dough that closes around a sweet or savory filling. Even today the exact boundary is disputed, and it shifts from person to person and from culture to culture.

  Cooking method is one place where definitions split. Boiling, simmering and steaming are the usual choices, while baking or frying turn up now and then. Some definitions rule out baking and frying altogether, so that fritters and similar pastries stay outside the category.

  Empanadas show how slippery the line can be. Their stuffings and types are numerous and varied. Yet they are deep fried, steamed or baked, and the excess dough is not cut off, which is why they differ from traditional dumplings.

  Chinese cooking has no single word that covers everything English calls a dumpling. Jiaozi, wonton and various steamed dumplings are each treated as distinct dishes within Chinese culinary tradition.

  Italian filled pastas make yet another case. Ravioli and tortellini are pockets of pasta holding cheese, mushrooms, spinach, seafood or meat, so they fit the basic definition. The difference is that the dough is rolled flat, cut and then closed around the filling, instead of being shaped from a ball. Gnocchi, a name that literally means lumps, are the other Italian kind. Cooks shape them from egg mixed with potato, semolina, flour or ricotta, boil them, and frequently add them to soup.

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• 3. The Jiaozi Legend

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  Zhang Zhongjing, a well-known Chinese medicine practitioner, is credited by legend with inventing the jiaozi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, sometime between 150 and 219 CE. The story says he returned to his hometown during a harsh winter. He found many poor people suffering from frostbitten ears, a hardship the legend blames on the emperor's bad governing.

  Zhang knew Chinese herbs that heat up the body. He mixed them with lamb and chili, folded the mixture into dough shaped like ears, and boiled it. He gave the dumplings and their soup to the poor, and their frostbite is said to have healed quickly. In memory of his help, eating jiaozi in winter became a tradition.

  Written records tell a more cautious story. They show jiaozi becoming popular during the Southern and Northern dynasties, which ran from 420 to 589 CE. The earliest real jiaozi ever unearthed came from the Astana Cemetery and are dated between 499 CE and 640 CE. In ancient times they were uncommon and treated as a luxury.

  The ear shape still defines them. A jiaozi generally holds minced meat and finely chopped vegetables inside a dough skin. The skin may be thin and elastic or thicker, and it is sometimes said that the skin decides a dumpling's quality.

  Pork is the usual meat, though beef, chicken, shrimp and fish are all popular. Favorite mixtures include pork with Chinese cabbage, pork with garlic chives, pork and shrimp with vegetables, pork with spring onion, and garlic chives with scrambled eggs. Region, season and personal taste all change the filling, and oyster can appear in some places. Jiaozi are usually boiled, steamed or fried. In Northern China, people commonly dip them in vinegar, sometimes with chilli oil or paste and occasionally a little soy sauce.

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• 4. Chinese Cousins

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  The wonton, known by that Cantonese name and as húntun in Mandarin, is shaped much like the Italian tortellino. It is typically filled with meat or shrimp and boiled in a light broth. Its skins are thinner and less elastic than those of jiaozi. Wontons are more popular in southern places such as Shanghai, Guangdong and Hong Kong, while jiaozi are more popular in the north.

  The yuntun spelling complicates things. In Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao it usually means a thin-skinned item with little filling, often served in soup. In the north, wonton generally means something with a thicker skin and more filling, presented in soups or mixed foods.

  Baozi are yeast-leavened filled buns, savory or sweet depending on the filling. Famous varieties include cha siu bao and shui jian bao. According to legend, Zhuge Liang invented the filled baozi, offering them to a Chinese god for good luck in military operations.

  Tangbao are dumplings filled with soup. The most famous are the steamed xiaolongbao of Jiangsu cuisine, made with leavened or unleavened dough. Cooks fill them with minced pork or a meat aspic, and steaming melts the gelatinous filling back into broth.

  The family runs on well past these. Har gow, fun guo, siew mai, lo mai gai, crystal dumplings and several varieties of dim sum all count among the other Chinese dumplings. Next door in Japan, gyōza is the version of the Chinese jiaozi, and chukaman is the variant of baozi.

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• 5. Dumplings on the Calendar

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  On the winter solstice, people in Northern China generally eat jiaozi in the hope of a warm winter. Extended families may gather to make them together, and they also appear at farewells for relatives or friends. On Chinese New Year's Eve they are usually served at the stroke of midnight after a big dinner.

  The midnight timing rests on a pun. The word jiaozi sounds like an old saying that means stepping into a new era, which suits the new year. Some cooks hide a coin or a candy inside a dumpling, hoping for a fortune or a sweet life.

  Jiaozi return on the fifth day after the Chinese New Year in the lunar calendar. Tradition forbids many things during the first five days, so eating jiaozi on the fifth day celebrates the end of that period. They show up again on the first day of the hottest days of summer. Harvested wheat is made into foods like jiaozi to mark the start of harvest and to celebrate the success of the harvest to come.

  Rice-based dumplings keep their own dates. Zongzi are triangular or cone-shaped, filled with red bean paste, Chinese dates or cured meat depending on the region, and traditionally eaten at the Dragon Boat Festival. Tangyuan are small glutinous rice flour dumplings filled with sweet sesame, peanut or red bean paste, or served plain. They are eaten on the 15th day of Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, and in Southern China an angular version is eaten on the winter solstice.

  Other cuisines follow the calendar too. Japanese dango are sweet rice flour dumplings similar to mochi, usually served three or four to a skewer. They are eaten year-round, but different varieties belong to particular seasons. Mongolian buuz were originally one of the main foods of the Mongolian Lunar New Year, though people now eat them all year. Their deep-fried version, khuushuur, is common during the national festival Naadam. In Karnataka and Goa, nevryo are sweet dumplings made just before Christmas.

  The Newar community of Nepal makes yomari, steamed dumplings with a rice flour covering and a sweet inside such as chaku. They are central to the festival of Yomari punhi. According to some, the triangular shape represents one half of the shadkona, the symbol of Saraswati and wisdom.

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• 6. Steppes and Mountains

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  Until the early Joseon Dynasty, Korea classed dumplings as a luxury food, and even noblemen could not eat them without permission. Dumplings, noodles and rice cakes were prohibited except for ancestral rites and Buddhist services. Korean dumplings are generally called mandu, with subtypes such as gyoja, a variant of the jiaozi, and hoppang, a variant of the baozi. Hoppang are thought to have arrived from China during the Goryeo Dynasty.

  The first Korean record of dumplings appears in the Hyowooyeoljeon section of the Goryeosa. It concerns a naturalized Khitan living in the reign of King Myeongjong of Goryeo, whose dumplings figure in a tale of extreme filial devotion toward his sick father. In 1185 the king heard the story, ordered ministers to discuss a reward, and had Hongsalmun Gate built to honor the man. Mandu are filled with ground pork, kimchi, galbi, bulgogi, vegetables or cellophane noodles. They can also go into a soup called mandu-guk.

  The Russian pelmeni carry a name from the Uralic Komi, Udmurt and Mansi languages. There, pel'n'an means literally ear bread. Nobody knows when pelmeni entered the cuisines of the indigenous Siberian people or when they reached Russian cooking. One theory places their origin in Siberia, as a simplified adaptation of the Chinese wonton.

  Siberia gave the dish a practical purpose. Pelmeni preserved meat quickly through the long winter and removed the need to feed livestock during those months. The shell is as thin as possible and the filling-to-dough ratio is high. Unlike varenyky and pierogi, pelmeni are never sweet, and their fillings are usually raw rather than precooked. A typical pelmen measures 2 to 3 cm across, while momo are often at least twice that size. In Siberia the meat sometimes includes venison.

  Momo are steamed dumplings that Nepal enjoys as a snack or a full meal. Nobody can say whether they began in Tibet or in Nepal, but they were present in Nepal as early as the fourteenth century. They come with an achar dipping sauce built on tomatoes and chillies, or in soups such as the Nepali jhol momo and the Tibetan mokthuk.

  Central Asia has manti, a steamed dumpling of spiced ground lamb or beef with black pepper. Cooks steam it in a multi-level steamer called a mantovarka and top it with butter, yogurt, sour cream or onion sauce. Uzbek and Tajik cooks make chuchvara, very small boiled dumplings of unleavened dough squares. Under Islamic dietary rules the meat filling contains no pork.

  In the Caucasus, khinkali come from the mountain regions of Pshavi, Mtiuleti and Khevsureti, and the towns of Dusheti, Pasanauri and Mtskheta are now particularly famous for them. The original recipe is only minced meat, onions, chili pepper, salt and cumin. Diners sip the juices on the first bite, which keeps the dumpling from bursting.

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• 7. Suet, Potatoes and Plums

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  Traditional British and Irish dumplings call for twice the weight of self-raising flour to suet, bound with cold water and seasoned with salt and pepper. Cooks drop balls of the dough into a bubbling stew, soup or casserole. They sit partly submerged and swell as they half-boil and half-steam for about ten minutes. The result can be airy inside and moist outside.

  Regional versions abound. The Norfolk dumpling uses no fat, only flour and a raising agent. Cotswold dumplings add breadcrumbs and cheese and may be rolled in more crumbs and fried. In Scotland, a dessert dumpling sweetened with dried fruit and spices is boiled in a cloth and called a clootie dumpling, after the cloth.

  In Germany, the dumpling takes different names by region, including Kloß in the north and Knödel in the south and Austria. Thüringer Klöße are made from raw or boiled potatoes, or both, and are often filled with croutons. Bread dumplings are sometimes boiled in a napkin and called Serviettenknödel. The world's only potato dumpling museum, the Thüringer Kloßmuseum, stands in Heichelheim near Weimar.

  Swabia's Maultaschen are pasta pockets filled with sausage meat, spinach, bread crumbs and onions. Each one is about 8-12 cm across. In Slovakia, bryndzové halušky, small unfilled potato dumplings topped with salty sheep's cheese, are considered the national dish. Czech cooks boil bread or potato knedlík in a loaf shape and cut it into slices.

  Hungarian gombóc wrap flour and potato dough around whole plums or apricots. Cooks boil them and roll them in hot buttered bread crumbs. The Slovenian town of Idrija is known for žlikrofi, hat-shaped dumplings with a potato filling. They follow a traditional 19th-century recipe whose source is unknown for lack of historical sources, and they were the first Slovenian food classified as a Traditional speciality guaranteed dish.

  Lithuanian cooks make šaltanosiai, which means cold nosed ones, with a blueberry filling. In Sweden, potato dumplings of originally German origin split by flour. Wheat flour gives kroppkaka in the south, while barley flour gives palt in the north, with Pitepalt from Piteå the best known. Blodpalt, made with blood in the dough, has even been found in Iron Age graves in Halland. Norway's Møre og Romsdal has blandaball, which mixes equal parts potato and fish.

  The Roman cookbook Apicius, from the fifth century, already includes a recipe for roasted pheasant dumplings.

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• 8. Maize, Tubers, Banana Leaves

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  Banku and kenkey, both made from fermented cornmeal, are West African dumplings in the form of steamed starchy balls. Banku is boiled and needs continuous kneading. Kenkey is partly boiled and then finished by steaming in corn or banana leaves. Far to the east, tihlo is made from roasted barley flour and originated in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia.

  South Africa has souskluitjies, steamed sweet dumplings often served with a cinnamon-flavored syrup or a custard sauce. Dombolo, also called ujeqe or steam bread, goes with stews of chicken, beef, oxtail, lamb or tripe. In Kenya, kaimati and matobosha are mostly breakfast foods, also served at parties and in fast-food kiosks.

  Barbados does its dumplings slightly sweetened, with cinnamon and nutmeg in the dough. Jamaica has three forms: fried, boiled and roasted. A refried dumpling is a leftover boiled one fried again for a crispy outside and tender middle. The Jamaican festival is a cylindrical fried dumpling made with flour, sugar, cornmeal and baking powder, served alongside sweet-and-sour escovitch fish.

  The Dominican domplines arrived with the cocolos, who came from the British Caribbean to work in the sugar industry and settled in and around San Pedro de Macorís. In Haiti, doumbrey are elongated flour dumplings boiled before going into soups and stews. Puerto Rico's pastel is greatly beloved, especially around Christmas. Cooks wrap a masa of grated root vegetables, squash, plantains and unripe bananas around stewed pork, then tie it in banana leaf and boil or steam it. Its origin leads back to the Natives of the island.

  On the Chilean archipelago of Chiloé, where potatoes are native, traditional dumplings include milcao, chapalele and chochoca. In Peru, papas rellenas are mashed potatoes flattened in the palm, stuffed with sautéed meat and seasonings, then rolled in flour and deep-fried. Brazil's coxinhas use a thick dough stuffed with chicken, and the source likens them to a chicken corn dog. Bolinhas, which literally translates to little balls, hold meat or cheese. In El Salvador, pupusas are thick griddle cakes of cornmeal or rice flour, served with curtido, a spicy fermented cabbage slaw.

  In the United States, the rise of urbanization during the 1800s brought immigrants from China, the United Kingdom and Germany. Cookbooks from the nineteenth century stress that factory-made canned biscuits and canned broth made drop dumplings easy at home. In the Carolinas, this style began to supersede earlier cornmeal-based recipes, both Indigenous and African-American. Dropped dough in a chicken stew thickens the broth into a gravy, giving the popular comfort food chicken and dumplings. In Canada, the poutine râpée is a filled dumpling with pork mince inside a flour ball.

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