Review: Pork Dumpling Filling from Adam Liaw

Ratings - Ease: 2/5, Taste: 5/5, Price: $$

Scale: Ease out of 5, with 5 being easy and 1 difficult. Taste out of 5, 5 being delicious and 1 being disgusting. Price out of 5 dollar ($) signs, $ being cheap and $$$ being expensive.

Link to the video recipe:

Link to the written recipe:


Making dumplings from scratch is an extremely arduous process, but most of the difficulty comes in making the dumpling dough and shaping/pleating the dumplings themselves. As a result, the filling isn't too bad on its own. Really, all you need to do is prep the mix-ins, then stir everything together for a few minutes.

While Adam suggests that you quickly boil the cabbage before you put it in the filling, I decided to chop it as finely as possible, then salt and drain it instead, which worked just fine. I noticed no crunchy cabbage in the finished dumplings, and I saved having to bring an extra pot of water to the boil. I also used soy sauce instead of salt, which I felt gave it a nicer flavor. It's hard to gauge how much to put, so I eyeballed it, then cooked a small piece of the filling in the microwave to check the seasoning. Instead of grating the ginger, I pounded it in a mortar and pestle, then squeezed out all the juice, discarding the fibers. Lastly, I did the stirring of the meat entirely by hand, mixing it up with two chopsticks. A stand mixer is definitely not a requirement for the filling.

This dumpling filling recipe tasted exactly like what I hoped they would, as to be expected from Adam Liaw, who I'm a big fan of.

P.S. I had leftover filling (too much meat, not enough dumpling dough), and it tasted great for breakfast the next day, pan-fried as a sausage patty.

Write a comment ...

Write a comment ...

Krishna Sreenivasan

Reviews of easily accessible online recipes, so you know what's worth making at home