I have long wanted to develop a recipe for Chinese chicken dumplings, but it took several more attempts than expected. It would have been easier if minced dark meat chicken were easily available, because it’s more similar to minced pork. Unfortunately, in most supermarkets, all you will find is minced chicken breast – not thigh or leg meat. Minced breast can have a cottony or pasty texture (the latter comes from being frozen and too finely minced), both of which are unpleasant.
To get around that, I added a lot of other ingredients to the minced chicken breast filling: ginger, fresh water chestnuts, spring onions and fresh coriander. They all add flavour, but just as importantly, they give the filling texture, especially the ginger and water chestnuts, which have a delicate crunch.
This amount of filling makes about 60 to 80 dumplings. You don’t need to boil all of them at once, because they freeze well. Put the uncooked dumplings on a tray, then into the freezer. When the dumplings are frozen solid, transfer them to a sealable plastic container or put them in a zip-lock bag and store in the freezer. Boil the dumplings from their frozen state.
