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Available at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooksRecent PostsGluten-Free Asian Dumpling Dough: Uses Beyond Pot StickersGluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 2Asian Market Shopper app in action! (video)Asian Tofu Update: Second Pages and Photo Proofs!How to Make Vietnamese Coffee (video)Tolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?Refrigerator Gold: Leftover Corn Cakes and Chile SauceMoon Cakes: Love or Hate Them?New Crop of Asian Americans in FarmingAwards + Praise
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October 03, 2011Gluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 2
The world of Asian dumplings is vast as the types of dough and fillings that can be used. Soon after the Asian Dumplings cookbook was published in 2009, I received requests for gluten-free dumplings. My response was, “There are many gluten-free Asian dumpling recipes in the book. Check the rice, starch, and legume and tuber chapters for ideas.”
But I quickly realized that the people asking about gluten-free dumplings were specifically interested in making pot stickers (guotie, gyoza). The little panfried morsels are among the most popular, go-to Asian dumpling. So I took a stab at it and the result was so-so. I used an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend by Bob’s Red Mill and posted the hearty results in the form of a gluten-free pot sticker recipe on Asiandumplingtips.com.
Whenever I make a recipe my ultimate question is: Would you proudly serve that to family and friends? With that initial trial run of gluten-free pot stickers, my answer was, frankly, “No!”
My dissatisfaction lingered for over a year and a half. When I had a break from the tofu book a couple weeks ago, I revisited gluten-free pot stickers to see if I could improve my performance. It was matter of crafting a better basic dumpling dough that was devoid of gluten. That’s why this post is trial number 2. Because I ended up experimenting with another dough, I’ll also be posting about trial number 3 this week. Then I’ll do a recap and comparison between the trials.
Blending gluten-free flours & starches
For these dumplings, I decided to fill them with one of my favorites, a classic Chinese pork and napa cabbage filling (Asian Dumplings, page 31). Choose whichever filling that you want from the first chapter of the book because the yield will work for the amount of dough I make below. I prepared a batch of filling and stuck it in the fridge so that I could focus on the dough and test it without fuss.
Instead of purchasing a flour mix, I decided to blend my own. The first dough that I made was based on a gluten-free bread flour mix in Cybele Pascal’s The Allergen-Free Baker’s Handbook: How to bake without gluten, wheat, dairy, eggs, soy, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. I figured that it covered the gamut and Pascal knew her stuff. She's expert in this area.
The flour blended the following in a 3:3:4:2 ratio: (I’ve included a summary of Pascal’s notes on the flours and starches.)
Millet flour: mild tasting flour that lends a good ‘wheaty’ flavorSourcing gluten-free flours and starches
I had never cooked with millet or sorghum flour and marched down to the health food store. I found millet flour in the bulk bins section and sorghum flour in the flour aisle in a package by Bob’s Red Mill. (Bob’s also packages millet flour.) Specialty food markets such as Whole Foods carries these kinds of flours too.
Tapioca and potato starch are inexpensive at Asian markets but they’re also sold at health food stores too. (If you are familiar with using millet or sorghum flours, add your insights on how they function and compare to regular all-purpose flour.)
When I looked at the break down of Pascal’s mix, it appeared that the flours contribute flavor while the starches lend stretch. The final ingredient in a lot of gluten-free dough is xantham gum, a plant gum that provides extra structure and elasticity to mimic wheat flour well. Pascal noted that that xantham gum is the gluten-free baker’s friend.
I’d used xantham gum in the first pot sticker trial and knew where to buy it inexpensively: my health food store’s bulk spice section. Xanthan that is sold in the box is about $15 and I didn’t want to invest that much or keep lots of it on hand. If xantham is unavailable, use guar gum, also sold at health food stores with the bulk option being more affordable.
Formulating a gluten-free basic dumpling dough
I weighed my flours and starches and applied Pascal’s mix ratio to come up with my own blend of gluten-free bread flour:
3 3/8 ounces (3/4 cup) millet flour
3 3/8 ounces (3/4 cup) sorghum flour
4 1/2 ounces (1 cup) tapioca starch
3 ounces (1/2 cup) potato starch
Then I measured 10 ounces of the gluten-free bread flour mix into a bowl, added 2 teaspoons of xantham gum (based on a guesstimate) and added my usual 3/4 cup of just-boiled water. I mixed the dough by hand until it was smooth and firm-soft.
I pressed my fingers into the lightly speckly dough and of course, it didn’t spring back! Duh, there was no gluten.
Then I let the dough rest in the plastic bag for 30 minutes so that it would soften a tad. Then I rolled it out into wrappers that I filled and shaped. The dough was pretty easy to handle.
The verdict?
I served these gluten-free pot stickers to them to my husband and a friend for lunch. We all thought they were quite good, not overly gummy or doughy. The filling and dipping sauce – made with gluten-free seasonings for the heck of it – were tasty too, though I wanted a little extra oomph by way of regular soy sauce or extra salt. I just followed the recipes in Asian Dumplings and substituted a wheat-free tamari for the soy sauce.
“These are definitely not like your regular pot stickers but if I had to be on a gluten-free diet, I would appreciate having these,” my husband said.
I was happily surprised by the dough’s performance. Pascal’s flour lent a certain toothsome quality and good flavor to the wrapper. The millet and sorghum flours gave the pot stickers a rustic quality. There were hearty but not as much as the first batch of gluten-free dumplings, which reminded me of poorly made whole wheat pasta. This recipe trial number two was far more elegant.
Technical notes on gluten-free dumpling dough
While fiddling around with the dough, I had these realizations about working with gluten-free Asian dumpling dough:
After this second experiment with gluten-free dumpling dough, I got curious about tweaking the flour mixture. I tried another gluten-free dumpling dough that I’ll write about next.
Related posts:
Gluten-free Asian Dumpling Dough: How to make the most of itGluten-Free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 3 (sorghum, sweet rice, and tapioca starch dough)with tips on working with GF dumpling dough)Gluten-free Pot Stickers: Recipe Trial 1 (on Asiandumplingtips.com)
Guide to Building an Asian Dumpling PantryTolerance Test: Are Gluten-Free Asian Ingredients for You?
(If you have the enhanced e-version of Asian Dumplings, the technique videos are included)
How to roll out Asian dumpling wrappersBasic Asian dumpling shapes: Half Moon, Pea Pod and Big HugAdvanced dumpling shapes: Pleated CrescentPosted in Asian Dumplings, Asian Ingredients, Recipes: All, Recipes: Appetizer and Snack, Recipes: Banh (Crepes, dumplings, cakes, bread) Recipes, Recipes: Gluten-Free | PermalinkReblog (0) | | Digg This | | Comments
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I've been working on adapting your recipes as well, with the added issue of working within a paleo-diet framework, which means all grains are pretty much out.
The first pass recipe was 5oz of Almond Flour, 2.5oz of Sweet Potato Flour, and 2.5oz of Tapioca Flour. The dough absorbs roughly half as much hot water as the basic dough in your book. The dough was very fragile, and I pretty much pressed it with a Tortilla press and worked from there, rather than rolling it.
It worked well (especially after 7+ months without any dumplings), but it was still around 6g of carbohydrates per dumpling. I'm going to try to reduce the starch amount and compensate with Xanthan Gum (and possibly Agar Agar, which I've had luck with in baking) on the next test batch.
Posted by:Dave Weinstein |October 04, 2011 at 10:00 AMUsing starches in the dough can heavily weigh them down and loads you up with carbs. Have you tried amaranth flour in addition to the almond flour?
Nut and seed flours are what I've been hearing about as a good alternative for GF food. They're loaded with protein too.
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 04, 2011 at 10:22 AMThis is great! I am looking forward to reading about trial No. 3. I am definitely excited to make some dumplings for my GF niece. She has never had asian dumplings of any kind. Do you think GF trial no. 2 flour would make good soup dumplings? :O)
I will go to the store and get some millet and sorghum flours today. I already have the tapioca and potato starch and xantham gum.
Thanks!
Posted by:Lori |October 04, 2011 at 11:01 AMGlad this info is useful to you! Trial 3 used a slightly different flour blend.
I could not get the dough to be super thin enough for Shanghai soup dumplings. That satchel shape was the hardest to form from the gluten-free dough because of the lack of stretch. That said, if your niece doesn't mind a not-so-delicate skin on her soup dumpling, that may work for her!
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 04, 2011 at 11:17 AMPseudo-grains like Amaranth are out too.
I'm considering adding some coconut flour to the mix, and switching to exclusively tapioca for the root starch because it is so sticky.
Time permitting, I'll try a new test batch later this week.
Posted by:Dave Weinstein |October 04, 2011 at 11:48 AMThis is great and timely. Dumplings (called kreplach) are traditionally served for Yom Kippur this week, and I totally needed a recipe. Thanks. How far in advance can I make these?
Posted by:Amy |October 04, 2011 at 09:40 PMCrude Palm oil yesterday traded with the negative node and settled -0.96% down at 465 influenced by subdued demand in the spot market and a weak global trend. Also pressuring prices were expectations of seasonal weakness in CPO demand in the October-December quarter as weather turns colder
Posted by:men wrist watches |October 05, 2011 at 01:46 AMAmy: I have some in the freezer and will let you know how they did in a few days! You can shape the dumplings and keep them on a "floured" parchment paper-lined backing sheet for hours in the fridge. Cover them to avoid drying.
The dough would be great for kreplach!
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 05, 2011 at 11:31 AMDave: You are giving up a lot for the Paleo diet. Sorry. ;(
Posted by:Andrea Nguyen |October 05, 2011 at 11:32 AMDo you really have to? The study tentatively recommends that the life-saving kits be issued to “some first responders, health care providers, and other workers that support critical infrastructure, as well as their families.” Apparently medical workers aren’t too stupid to live, according to the Institute of, uh, Medicine. And neither are government workers – those postal workers, the cops that will have to accompany them, and anybody else in government who’s smart enough to call himself a first responder (want to bet that includes the Governor?).
I'm gonna try this one. it sounds interesting for me.
Alvin
Posted by:restaurants in Laguna Philippines |October 06, 2011 at 01:36 AM Verify your Comment Previewing your CommentPosted by: |This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.
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