Steamed Beef Dumplings

When I was in Shanghai 3 years ago, one of our favorite places to eat was a little restaurant down the street from where we lived. It was run by Hui - the Muslim nationality of China. We never knew the name of the restaurant, but if we were ever at a loss for dinner plans, someone invariably suggested "the Islamic place." No one ever objected. The food was inexpensive and good, but most importantly, the entire menu was displayed in photos all over the walls. Because of their dietary restrictions, this restaurant did not serve two very common elements of Chinese cuisine: beer and pork. Lamb or beef were found in a majority of the dishes, including the steamed dumplings.

Dumplings are a truly versatile food. I like this recipe because it uses very common ingredients most people will probably have lying around the kitchen. I didn't buy anything on the list with the specific intention of this dish, other than dumpling wrappers (which, as usual you could also make from scratch). These dumplings would also taste great with lamb. Green onions work well in most dumplings, also, but I haven't been able to get them in the grocery store recently.

"The Islamic place"

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound ground sirloin
• 1/4 onion
• 1 big clove garlic
• 3/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 30 potsticker wrappers

Instructions

Coarsely grate the onion using a cheese grater. Mince garlic. In a bowl, combine the beef, onion, garlic, and all seasonings. Gently mix everything together until integrated. You can easily check your dumpling filling by pinching off a little bit, searing it in a frying pan, and tasting it.

Next, assemble the dumplings. Prepare a bowl of water. Take a wrapper and spoon a little filling into it. Make sure not to overfill or the dumpling will be hard to close. Dip your finger in the water and wet the outer edges of the wrapper. Fold over and pinch to seal. Pinch 2-3 folds to make it stand up, like with any potsticker. I made 30 dumplings.

Cut small pieces of parchment paper and lay them out inside a bamboo steamer. Put a dumpling on each. Get a pot of water boiling and place the covered steamer on top. Steam for 12 minutes. Like most dumplings, you can easily freeze the ones you don't want to eat right away.

A final request to readers: I put the dumplings on wax paper, and they stuck horribly. In my attempts to take the wax paper off, the bottoms of the dumplings went with. As such, I have recommended parchment, but I am not sure if that is better, or if there is another solution. If you know the answer, please leave a comment!