I friggin' love things in small packages: dumplings, pierogies, gnocchi, tortellini, gnudi... you name it, it should get in my belly immediately.

Dumplings take forever. But! They freeze really, really well. So this is a definite Yes whenever I started planning a massive batch cook like the one I did this weekend.

Planning!

Though this particular recipe from Food & Wine is one I haven't made in the past, I have many, many dumpling recipes. Sometimes I make my own wrappers. Sometimes I buy them from the store. Because this recipes includes a sauce that's meant almost to be a quick marinade for the cooked dumplings, I wanted to follow the directions closely to get the intentionally brainy-looking dumplings that will soak up the sauce nicely; which meant buying pre-made wrappers. That said, the recipe does call for trimming the wrappers, which I decided not to do because I hate to waste in the name of aesthetics (I'm not made of money, David Burtka!); I decided to fold the dumpling corners in (a fairly standard dumpling shape) to keep the corners from flapping around, in the spirit of the "trimming" directive.

Oh, and one other thing: the recipe calls for mirin, which I don't keep on hand (though I'm starting to think I should). But the recipe calls for so little of it that rather than doctor up some white wine, I decided to skip it altogether.

Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...

The recipe suggested that this would make "about" five dozen dumplings, so I decided to wait and see how many it made, then ask myself how to divide into portions. I ultimately wound up with 54 dumplings, and when I asked the Fitbit Magic 8 Ball whether that could viably divide into 6 portions including sauce, it said Outlook Looks Good! So that's how I divided it up!

Groceries I had on hand...

• vegetable oil
• carrots
• garlic
• low-sodium soy sauce
• sambal oelek
• cornstarch
• sesame oil

Groceries I had to buy...

• shiitakes (.49lb @ $1.69/lb = $1.17)
• scallions (1 bundle @ $1.99/3 bundles = $.67)
• baby bok choy (.68lb @ $1.69/lb = $1.17)
• ginger (.18lb @ $2.69/lb = $.48)
• ground pork (.94lb @ $5.99/lb = $5.63)
• wonton wrappers (2 @ $2.99 each = $5.98
• black bean sauce ($2.99/jar)

Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $18.09

Total monies spent for each of these 8 portions....

$2.26 per portion.

Cooking!

Though this takes a while to make, it is fairly straight forward to make dumplings. Make a filling full of flavor; make sure all the elements are small; make sure it has cooled down before adding any raw ingredients (like raw pork, as a completely random but specific example that is strangely relevant to this exact post); get folding!

Here's how it went!

A quick note: in my header photo, they are touching and yes, they have cornstarchy-water on them which is essentially glue. I did dry them out a bit before stacking them, and then dragged the still slightly damp ones through the thin layer of flour on the pan before layering them up. Because of these precautions, they popped apart very nicely after freezing. These can chill in the freezer in a single layer on the sheet tray for about an hour and a half (touch them to see if they're frozen), and then they can go into a container or bag to live in the freezer for much longer. When I'm ready for them, they'll go straight from the freezer to the steamer.

I seriously cannot wait to eat these. I almost saved a portion for myself for right now. But that would be cheating!