Oxtail Dumplings for Non-Chinese New Year

As a life-long student of China and a former 4-year resident of Beijing, I like dumplings for New Year, both Western and lunar.  We know them here on the menus as "boiled dumplings", but what I'm really talking about are jiaozi (饺子), which, if I'm not mistaken, translates to English as "lengthy, drawn-out pain in the ass."

I decided to exacerbate the lengthiness of the dumpling-making process by making my own dough and filling them with braised oxtail, a 9-hour process in and of itself.  Ambition seems so much less daunting when it's basically inconsequential.  Funny that.

Here's the oxtail filling recipe, to be made 2 DAYS before you mean to serve the jiaozi:

Braised Oxtail

+ 2 lbs oxtail  + salt and pepper  + coconut oil  + 2 onions, preferably one red and one spanish, roughly chopped  + 10 cloves of garlic, peeled and halfed  + half a pint cherry or grape tomatoes  + 1 TB tomato paste  + 2 TB soy sauce  + 1 tp fish sauce  + 8 oz good wine, type unimportant  + 6 oz ketchup  + 16 oz/2 cups whole milk

Now's the time to break out your heaviest dutch oven.  Big ol' pot.  Start by seasoning your oxtail with salt and pepper and then searing it on high heat in the coconut oil; make sure to get a nice brown crust on each piece.  Set the pieces aside.

Add a bit more coconut oil to the pan and keep the heat high.  Toss in the onions and the tomatoes and let them fry up and brown for about 5 minutes.  Throw in the tomato paste, soy sauce and fish sauce; allow all the liquid to evaporate.  Once the liquid is gone and the vegetables are nicely glazed, do the same with the wine.  Once the liquid in the pan is viscous and syrupy, add the garlic, ketchup and milk and more salt and pepper.  Now, the pieces of oxtail go back into the pot and enough water needs to be added to cover the meat.  Bring the liquid to a boil, then turn the heat from high to low and put on the cover.

5 hours later, lift the lid and survey the scene.  You should be easily able to fish out the bones by this point, but if not, simply let it cook a bit longer until you can.  Once you have fished out the bones, let the tail cook uncovered until the liquid is thickened and no longer covering the meat, about another hour or 2.  Taste it, check the seasoning then adjust accordingly.  Then off with the heat, on with the lid and shove it into the fridge until you're ready to make the dumplings.

Jiaozi Dough

Now we're gonna have to discuss the difference in Asian cooking between hot water dough and cold water dough.  Generally dough made from cold water, thereby having less of an effect on the flour particles and holding up better to more aggressive cooking methods such as boiling, is used to make jiaozi.  However, I chose to make a hot water dough for these jiaozi because it is a little easier to work with and I find it holds up just fine to the boiling process.  I used a recipe from Chowhound that I found here that worked like a charm.

As an aside, here's a pretty good PDF that discusses the specifics of various flours and the effects of protein and starch content on water absorption when making dough. 



Assembling the Dumplings

After the dough is made and rested properly, get yourself set up on a nice big work surface with lots of room to spread out and to put your dumplings once you're finished wrapping them.

Bust that oxtail out of the fridge and behold all that solidified fatty tastiness.  I didn't really stir it before I started in on the process so that each dumpling would have its own unique concentration of elements. 

Dust your work surface and your rolling pin with flour.  Take a chunk of the dough, roll it into a "snake" and cut that snake into equal pieces sized according to how big you would like your finished dumplings to be.  Chances are you'll probably have to experiment a bit before you settle on the perfect size.

Roll each piece of the "snake" into a flat disk.  When you think it's thin enough, roll it a bit thinner, then place a small spoonful of the oxtail in the center.  Dontchya dare overfill that little %$#$!  You DO NOT want that savory beef fat leaking out into the boiling water and negating your entire previous day of cooking.  Fortunately I learned this from experience.

I choose simplicity when it comes to the folding part.  I simply fold the disk in half and seal.  Voilà.  I know my limits.

Now the real trick to this is recruiting every last person in your house/apartment/neighborhood/tri-state area to assist in the wrapping.  I ended up losing the support of my 5 year-old daughter to Dora and her wiles and was not finished prepping my little babies until (very literally) 6 hours later.  Work it.

Once you start boiling, taste-test them to find the perfect boiling time for your dumplings.  Should be around 5-6 minutes.  Serve'em right away on big platters in the middle of the table.  I leave the dipping sauce to you.