Do you ever get hit with a craving out of the blue? We do. Most of the time there’s some immediate or otherwise identifiable instigator behind a craving … a nostalgic memory, a TV show, a restaurant experience. But sometimes, a craving just pops into our heads. Like these Shanghai street dumplings.
We can think of no good reason why we’re so compelled to make them right now—close to St. Patrick’s Day, during the season of Lent, coming from families with combined Sicilian, Belgian, Polish, and English heritage. Yet here we are. We’re tempted to point a finger at P.F. Chang’s, which serves Shanghai street dumplings on its menu, but it’s literally been years and years (at least 7.5 years, and likely more) since we’ve had those, so that seems unlikely.
Regardless, these puppies are delicious. The filling and the ponzu sauce are both easy to make gluten-free via tamari wheat-free soy sauce. The real trick here is the dumpling wrappers. Our recipe combines inspiration from traditional wheat-based street dumpling wrapper recipes and the fabulous gluten-free dumpling wrappers from Laura Russell’s The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen.
The result is a gluten-free Shangai street dumpling that could go toe-to-toe with its gluten-ous counterpart any day. They’re a little bit of work, but trust us, they’re worth it.
Shanghai Street Dumplings
Makes 24 dumplings
Ingredients and Steps
For the filling:
1/2 lb pork, minced
5 raw shrimp (26-30 count), minced
2 green onions (scallions), minced
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp tamari wheat-free soy sauce
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 tsp dry sherry
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1. Combine oil ingredients in a small bowl and place in the refrigerator until ready to fill the wrappers.
For the wrappers:
1/2 cup (63 g) Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend
1/2 cup (60 g) tapioca flour
1/2 cup (60 g) glutinous (sweet) rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 cup boiling water
2 tbsp cold water
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
2. Mix the three flours, salt, and xanthan gum, then add the boiling water and mix to combine. The mixture will be dry and crumbly.
3. Add the cold water and olive oil, mixing until a dough forms. Knead with your hands in the bowl to bring the bowl together, adding extra rice flour if the dough is sticky.
4. Divide the dough in half, and roll each half to form a thick snake. Cut each half into 12 pieces and cover with plastic wrap or put in a zip-top bag to prevent from drying out.
5. Roll each gum-ball-sized piece out between two pieces of plastic wrap, to form round wrappers 3 inches in diameter.
6. Place on a cookie sheet dusted with rice flour.
* Make only as many wrappers at a time as will fit in your steamer. For example, we made 8 dumplings per batch.
To make the dumplings:
7. Heat a pot of water with your steamer on top. Cover the bottom of the steamer with a single layer of Napa cabbage leaves.
8. For each dumpling wrapper, dust off any excess rice flour.
9. Place on a plate and put about 1 tbsp filling in the center of the wrapper.
10. Moisten the edge with water, and gather the dumpling at the top, squeezing to seal.
11. Repeat to complete the first batch.
12. Steam each batch of dumplings for 10 minutes.
13. While one batch is steaming, get started on the next batch. Repeat until all batches are done.
* Replace the cabbage leaves as needed.
For the ponzu sauce:
1/4 cup tamari wheat-free soy sauce
2 tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp mirin
1 tsp water
1/4 tsp chili garlic sauce
Green onions (scallions)
14. Combine all ingredients to make the ponzu sauce.
* We used fresh-squeezed orange and lemon juice for this recipe. 1/2 lemon yielded the 2 tbsp lemon juice. We didn’t have oranges, and so used 2 clementines.
15. Plate the dumplings, drizzle with the ponzu sauce, garnish with chopped scallions, and serve with additional ponzu sauce on the side.
Degrees of Free-dom
This recipe is: gluten-free, dairy/casein/lactose-free, fish-free, peanut-free, tree-nut-free.
Enjoy!
–Pete and Kelli
Wow, those look so good! I have made dumplings before, but they sure did not look like your picture. I will have to give this recipe a try. 🙂
Probably the worst part about being gluten-free for me is the loss of dim sum. My dad took us to our first dim sum in Chinatown in Washington DC when I was eight. I have been a regular up until the gluten thing cropped up.
The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen has brought some of it back, but not all. This? Is more.
I just want someone to help me figure out how to make baked buns and my life will be complete again.
Love it! Looks like you’re more ambitious with the dumpling shaping than I am 😉
Can’t wait to try your filling.
I never tried making a dumpling before.
I guess it’s time for me to try.
Thanks for the rEcipe!
Is this recipe corn free also? I don’t recognize some of the ingredients.
Thanks for your help in this.
Hi Anonymous – Our flour blend has corn starch in it, which is one of the components for the dumpling wrappers. If you cannot have corn, you can substitute arrowroot flour in our blend,1/2 cup for a single batch. Alternatively, you can use millet flour instead of our flour blend for these dumpling wrappers, which is a flour Laura Byrne Russell uses in her dumpling wrappers in The Gluten Free Asian Kitchen.
Happy cooking!
Kelli
These are fantastic, very tasty little morsels. We used chicken mince in place of the pork as my daughter does not like pork. Thank you for the recipe, these are going to become a regular thing in our household.
Why do you put glutinous rice flour? Doesn’t this make it not gluten free?
Amy C,
Glutinous rice flour is the same as sweet rice flour. It does not have gluten in it. It is a very fine rice flour that works great in dumplings.
Happy cooking!
Kelli
I just made dumplings tonight using this dough recipe – amazing! I couldn’t find sweet rice flour, so substituted for part corn flour, part potato starch and it worked well. The dough was a lot easier to work with than I expected and tasted sensational. I used a different filling recipe as I didn’t have enough of the filling ingredients listed on your page at home already… Thumbs up indeedy! Thanks for an excellent recipe, so tasty 🙂
Peter – I am always on the hunt for a fabulous dumpling recipe & these look tremendous!!!
Thank you for sharing & hope you are well!
What is a good substitute for Artisan GF Flour Blend? I have other flours on hand. Thanks.
Besides the sweet rice flour, most of the other flours can be replaced. You can use millet flour or brown rice flour. Soybean flour would probably work okay for dumplings. Just !make sure to use other starches such as potato starch, arrowroot starch, cornstarch, etc. 40% grain/nut/bean flours to 60% white flour/starches is usually a good guide for any gluten frwe blend to start with.
My Chinese friends wanted to make dumplings for me and since I’m gluten free we used this recipe. They looked at the results and felt horrible as the dough didn’t hold together. They boiled them. It didn’t taste too bad, but they were not as good as the ones they made with regular flour. I only know that as they tried both. I’m going to see if I can find another recipe.
Hi,
Gluten-free dough is more fragile than traditional dough. If your friends weren’t expecting that, it could catch them off guard. But as you can see from the pictures, it can hold up wonderfully to filling and steaming. It may take a little practice to get used to working with the dough, but once you get better at that, the dumplings turn out great.
– Pete
Doesn’t the pork need to be cooked before mincing and marinating it?
Please add more contrast to your site. It si almost impossible to read.
The pork cooks while being steamed in the dumpling, so the recipe is correct to start with raw pork to make the filling.
Thank you for your response. I do have to wonder if it cooks thoroughly enough to be safe for consumption, so I would still be inclined to use pre-cooked pork. (Just my upbringing) Thank you for this WONDERFUL recipe though. I am so excited to try it!
The Shanghai street dumplings were a great success. The filling tasted authentic, my wrappers were a little thick. I will need to learn how to roll them thinner without making holes. Thanks for the recipe?
Made this recipe and loved it! I plan to make it again tomorrow but will have a busy day.
Can you make the dough ahead of time? Will it stay if in a sealed bag and refrigerated for a few hours? Thank you!