Butternut Squash and Pork Dumplings

Preparation

Prep butternut squash

Preheat an oven to 400°F. Cut the butternut squash in half, then scoop out the seeds with a spoon and remove skin with a peeler. With a knife or mandolin, cut squash into thin slices. On a sheet pan covered with parchment paper, toss squash with olive oil and evenly lay out the slices. Sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper, then into the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes until softened and with slightly browned edges.

Make dough

While the butternut squash is in the oven, prepare your dough. Pour flour and water into a mixing bowl. Using a silicon spatula or chopsticks, incorporate the flour and water until it's loosely combined. Then, use hands to incorporate the rest of the flour and begin kneading the dough until it becomes smooth and the surface is uniform, around 10 minutes. When you press into the dough and it bounces back a little, you know it's done. When ready, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 20-30 min.

Make filling

When the butternut squash is ready, remove from oven and dice into a small pieces until it resembles a loose mash. You should have about 1 cup worth of diced butternut squash. Combine squash with the pork and remaining filling ingredients (garlic, ginger, scallions, cinnamon, salt, sugar, chicken broth, sesame oil) and with your hands, mix all that juicy meat mixture goodness together. Use a circular motion with your fingers until the filling looks homogeneous and sticky. Cover and aside in the fridge.

Make wrappers

If rolling with a pin: Lightly dust a work surface with flour. When your dough is ready, roll into four cylinders the thickness of hot dogs, then cut into 1 inch pieces. Turn each piece cut side up and with the palm of your hand, press down onto it to flatten to make a roughly flattened circle. Dust each side with flour and then with a rolling pin, flatten to create an circular wrapper to desired thickness. Repeat with the rest of your marshmellow dough pieces until you have a bunch of wrappers. Make sure to flour each wrapper as you roll them out so they don’t stick to each other and cover with plastic wrap so they don't dry out.

If using a pasta machine: Lightly dust a work surface with flour. When your dough is ready, take out and cut in half. Use your fingers and create a rough rectangle with your two halves the size of a 3x5 index card (it doesn't have to be exact) and put dough through your pasta machine at the lowest setting. Take your flattened rectangles and fold each into thirds, use your fingers again to create same rough 3x5 rectangle shape once again (the Italian grandmas say this step improves the texture/elasticity of the dough so I happily oblige). Put your dough rectangles through the pasta machine at its lowest setting. Increase the pasta machine setting by one, then run your flattened pasta dough through again. Repeat this step, increasing the setting by one and running your dough through until you're at the 4th or 5th setting of your pasta machine (depending on how thick or thin you like your wrappers).

Fold and seal dumplings

You can fold the dumplings however you'd like and have fun with it! For a classic circular fold, place a spoonful of meat in the center of your flattened dough. Then pleat around the meat with small folds, pushing the meat down as the wrapper starts to close in around it. Seal the dumpling and set aside.

For a classic dumpling fold, Place a small dab of meat (about a third of the size of the wrapper) into the middle. Dip your finger in a little bowl of water and lightly wet the edges of the wrapper. Seal the dumpling together by carefully pleating one half of the dumpling and attaching it to the other half. Repeat until you've run out of filling or wrappers (if you have leftover filling it's great to stir fry it and eat with rice).

Pan-fry dumplings and serve

If steam-frying — In a nonstick pan, add a generous dab of oil and place dumplings bottoms down and fry on medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes. When the bottoms have browned, add 1/4 cup of water and place a lid on top (the water will splatter when it hits the oil so be careful!) cover and steam for 6-8 minutes on medium heat. If the water evaporates too early, add a tablespoon more of water. Once the water has evaporated and you’ve reached the cook time, fetch dumplings out of the pan and serve.

If boiling — Place dumplings in a pot of boiling water. Let sit for a couple minutes until the water is boiling again. Pour a 1/2 cup of cold water into the pot to settle the boiling water back down (this will allow the filling to cook without having the wrappers break apart) Wait again until the water is boiling and dumpling start to float. The dumplings should be ready to eat on the second boil (check one to make sure filling is cooked). If not just add another 1/2 cup of water and repeat process until dumplings are floating and water is boiling. Fetch dumplings with a strainer to serve.