So, ever since my wife had soup dumplings out at a restaurant, I’ve been wanting to try to make some! I’ve seen a few recipes posted online but not many. I didn’t have arrowroot on hand, which is what they used, so I went my own way on this.
I decided to base this recipe off of my miso ramen recipe, which, as per usual for me, involves zero measurements. I read on another site that the soup dumpling broth needs more flavor than usual, so I used the amounts I’d normally use for a big pot – around 5-6 servings – and just used less water since I wasn’t adding the actual noodles. I’ve included approximations below as a guideline.
SOUP INGREDIENTS:
a few tablespoons of sesame oil
2 green onions
tofu – however much you want, you probably want a bit more tofu than green onions
1 heaping spoonfull of minced garlic (or to taste)
1 heaping spoonfull of ginger (I used a storebought tube, freshly grated would be lovely)
pepper to taste
mirin
soy sauce
about a cup and a half of water (this is a guess)
a large heaping spoonful of miso – use a big spoon
ALSO NEEDED:
wonton wrappers – mine were round and storebought
ziplock bag or freezer safe storage container
small dish of water
oil and water for cooking in
Directions:
Cut up green onions – I sliced mine down the middle before cutting them so that the layers would separate easily. Cut tofu into tiny pieces. Heat up the oil in a saucepan, and add onions and tofu. Cook until onions are at desired doneness and/or tofu is starting to brown. Mix in garlic and ginger and let cook for a minute or so. Add a few dashes of both mirin and soy sauce along with a little bit of pepper. If you want to add any spice like cayenne, now would be a good time to do so. Let that simmer a few minutes and then add the water and the miso. Stir as it heats to get the miso mixed in, make sure there are no remaining clumps. Let it get all hot and bubbling and then let it cool on the stovetop. Once it is cool, put it in the freezer. I just poured it in a small ziplock.
Let it freeze completely. Best to assemble the dumplings the next day, mine took longer to freeze than I thought it would. Once frozen, cut into small pieces.
To assemble, put a little bit of water in a small dish or cup. Hold dumpling wrapper in one hand, and use other hand to dab water and wet the edges all around the dumpling. Add filling to the middle of the dumpling wrapper and fold the dough in half around the filling and pinch shut around the edges. I did just this at first, because it was a familiar fold to me. The end result of this looked like most of the dumplings in the picture below:
We tried these out and the soup was too spread out for it to feel like a real soup dumpling. It was really tasty but not soupy enough. The one on the bottom right of the picture had ripped as I was folding and so I’d given it an extra fold, which had actually worked better to keep the soup together. So I made another batch where I folded them the same way at first but then added another fold (folding the seamed edge up), and then folded in the little winged edges so that the dumpling was kind of hugging itself. It resulted in this:
To get the arms to stick, you’ll need to wet them as well and fold them in. This fold resulted in the soup staying together in the middle of the dumpling, and was much more satisfying to eat.
To cook the dumplings, heat some vegetable oil in a pan, and then add the dumplings. Let cook in the oil for a few minutes, then add some water, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup, put a lid on it, and let steam. They will get noticably puffy. I took them out before they absorbed all the water, as they seemed soft and ready to eat, and yep, they were done. SO GOOD.
TIPS:
I started with the soup cut into squares – it was easy to cut even while frozen – but that tended to ppoke holes in the wrappers so I cut it into much smaller pieces and it was easier to fit into the middle of the wrapper once I did that.
If the soup starts to melt too much, put it back in the freezer and let refreeze before using. Otherwise it starts to squish out and the wrapper won’t want to stick to itself.
Definitely you could shape the dumplings and then freeze them for later use. My guess is you’d want to make sure they’re not touching while they freeze so they don’t stick together. Once frozen they could all go in a bag and be cooked the same way as written here, just may take a little longer.
They cool much faster than meaty soup dumplings (according to my wife) so you don’t have to wait as long to eat them. I ate them as soon as they were cool enough to touch on the outside without burning my finger.
For this batch of soup, I added flour as a thickener before adding the water and miso, as I was worried about the soup being too thin, but this seemed totally unnecessary, the miso added some helpful thickness to it.
Other Thoughts:
I really want to get some match meat to make the actual meaty layer that soup dumplings usually have between the soup and the wrapper, so once I do this I will report back!
The first try of these was not as hard as I expected it to be! I am pleasantly surprised! I think I lucked out by using my recipe with miso, accidental win there!
If you want to make ramen instead, don’t cut the tofu so small (and use more of it) and use about 3 packs of ramen – just add the water necessary for that many packages. We have a store that sells noodles without the flavor packets so we buy those.
Enjoy!!!
Happy Potato 