Chinese Traditional Dumpling Making Experience in Beijing

Beijing, China

Dumplings are one of the Chinese people’s favorite traditional dishes. To Chinese people who show high reverence for family love, having dumplings at the moment the old year is replaced by the new is an essential part of bidding farewell to the old and ushering in the new year. You'll take the chance to learn the whole process of Chinese dumpling making in this cooking class.

Meet your cooking instructor at our guesthouse and we will head to the local market together to buy all the raw materials to cook our delicious dumplings.

Upon returning to our kitchen, we will get started our our traditional Chinese dumpling making class. According to an ancient Chinese legend, dumplings were first made by the medical saint-Zhang Zhongjing (150-215 A.D.). There are three steps involved in making dumplings:

• Make dumpling wrappers out of dumpling flour（ɡǎn pí）
• Prepare the dumpling stuffing
• Make dumplings and boil them

With thin and elastic dough skin, fresh and tender stuffing, delicious taste, and unique shapes, dumplings are worth eating hundreds of times. There’s an old saying that claims(sú yǔ), 'Nothing could be more delicious than dumplings'. During the Spring Festival and other holidays, or when treating relatives and friends, Chinese people like to follow the auspicious custom of eating dumplings.

First of all, pour some water into the wheat flour,and stir it until it becomes a piece of dough,you can put three egg whites in the 250g flour, it may cause the stuffed dumpling skin nicely chewy skidding. after that then put them for 20 minutes to 'awake the dough', also get some filling ready. It can be vegetables or meat.Make sure to put the oil before putting the salt, in such vegetable moisture not easily is killed by the salt. After,put the ingredient such as spice,onion and ginger to stir evenly on is fine.

Then cut the large piece of dough into many small pieces, roll the dough with a rolling pin into round,thin wrappers. Put the filling in the center of a wrapper, and fold it up.

The last thing to do is to boil them, When the water is boiling, put the dumplings one by one into the water and cover the pot. When steam comes out, add more cold water and when it boils again add cold water a second time. When you see the dumplings floating in boiling water, you can put them in bowls or plates, get the chopsticks and be ready to eat.

In northern China, dumplings are dipped（zhàn） in vinegar and soy sauce and often eaten with a piece of raw garlic. Dine in and enjoy your delicious dumplings made by yourself. Be sure the keep the receipt so you can bring it home and cook for your beloved friends and family!

Traveler Reviews

Review by:   Tiffany S,    January 2018
Great experience. The teacher and chef was named Jerry and was very thoughtful and clear. I was the only one on this tour and they still did it, which I appreciated. They gave me tea when I arrived and a thoughtful gift. By the end I was a master at dumpling folding!

Review by:   janetwoollard,    July 2016
This was a good, fun morning. It would have been good if we had more time in the market to look around but this was a quick in and out. I would also have been made better if we actually did some of the cooking ourselves. We prepared the dough, mixed the ingredients and made the dumplings but the cooking itself was actually done by the guides.

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