There are many options for sculpting dumplings - it all depends on your imagination and the amount of free time. Connect the whole family to work, and you will spend a wonderful evening, which will end with a delicious and beautifully decorated dish. So, we learn to make beautiful dumplings in several ways at once.
Useful Tips
There are different types of dumplings, it all depends on the filling and their appearance, depending on how the hostess decorates them - wrap or pinch beautifully. Before considering how to properly make dumplings, and which methods are most convenient, it is necessary to take into account several important nuances, without which nothing can happen:
- knead the dough for a long time (at least 10 minutes) until large air bubbles inside it disappear;
- for greater elasticity of the dough, you can add a little vegetable oil to it;
- after kneading, remove the dough in a warm place (or refrigerator, depending on the instructions in the recipe) for about half an hour, so that the gluten disperses, and the dough becomes even more elastic;
- for the best performance of artistic modeling, make the same circles (slightly larger than dumplings), rolling the dough into a large layer;
- if the filling has leaked to the edges of the dough, and it doesn’t want to stick together, generously sprinkle the edges of the dumpling with flour and try to mold again.
Traditional pigtail
The classic way to sculpt dumplings with potatoes - a pigtail. It is fast, beautiful, and the products themselves are less prone to sticking during cooking. Not everyone can pinch a beautiful dumpling. At first glance, this option of modeling may seem difficult, but after a few minutes you will become a real professional in modeling dumplings with a pigtail.
Cooking
- Roll the dough into a large layer and make the same circles with a glass or a special cookie cutter. The diameter should be at least 8 cm, since you need to take into account the place for the pigtails.
- Spread the filling.
- If you’re right-handed: take a filling circle in your left hand and bend it in half (if left-handed, vice versa).
- Before dumpling dumplings with a pigtail, firmly connect the edges of the dough. Walk along the edge twice to make the base for the pigtail thinner and wider, so that it forms more easily and is not too thick (a thick pigtail may not boil over).
- Bend one corner with the thumb and forefinger (the thumb is on top, the index is on the bottom), and in this way you get an “eye”.
- Bend the edge of the “ear” again, and you get a new “eye”. It should be pressed tight enough to look beautiful, and the pigtail did not turn around during cooking.
- In this way, sculpt to the other corner of the dumpling. The result should be a beautiful pigtail.
- During the “weaving”, move not the hand with which you bend the edge, but the one in which you hold the dumpling (if you are right-handed, it will turn clockwise) - this way the weaving hand will work more evenly, and the molding links will be as identical as possible.
Step by step original option
The traditional form of dumplings is lunar.But no one forbids us to make it, for example, round, and at the same time decorate them with the same traditional pigtail.
Cooking step by step
- Roll the dough into a thin layer and cut the same circles into a glass.
- Take one circle in your hand, put the filling on it and cover with a second circle.
- Firmly blind the edges of the product in a circle.
- Now you can spin the dumplings in the same way as regular lunar lunches: bend one section, firmly pressing it, then the next corner, and so on in a circle.
Herringbone
Beautiful modeling of dumplings is not limited to the usual pigtail. There is another way how to pinch dumplings beautifully - this is a Christmas tree. By the way, this method can be used to make not only dumplings, but also manti and dumplings.
Cooking
- Make a thin layer of dough. Cut it into identical circles with a suitable cup or a special shape.
- Take one circle of dough in your hand and put the filling in the middle. Do not put too much, especially if you are doing such modeling for the first time. It is better to sculpt on weight - this is how products turn out much more accurately than on a board.
- Make the first pin in the usual way and push it a little inside the circle.
- Grab one edge of the circle, pinch it and pull it to the center, gluing to the first pin.
- Do the same with the opposite edge - grab, pinch and glue to the center.
- Gradually move forward along the middle seam of the dumpling. That is, you do not need to attach the edges to the first pin all the time, but only to the previous one from the opposite side.
Quick way
You can quickly stick dumplings by hand in a very simple way, but at the same time the products themselves will look very nice.
Cooking
- Roll the dough into an oblong layer (the shape of an elongated oval).
- In the center of this layer, spread the filling with balls with a teaspoon at a distance of about 3 cm from each other.
- Bend the formation in half lengthwise. You should get a sausage with filling balls inside.
- Cover the free edges around the balls.
- Gently cut the glass into equal portions without touching the filling. You can cut it with a knife - then you get the original square dumplings.
Another option is how to pinch dumplings beautifully without spending a lot of time - just blind a circle filled with a half-moon dumpling and go for a curly knife for pasties. It is very fast and no less beautiful.
But remember that to know and be able to beautifully mold dumplings with a sweet or unsweetened filling is not enough. The fillings can be different, and each of them can leak if the dough is not properly wrapped in a dumpling. The main thing is that the dish should still be tasty, and artistic modeling will decorate your masterpiece favorably and will certainly make your household ask for supplements.
Other dough recipes
Dumpling dumplings in a bread machine
Dumpling dumplings with potatoes
A simple recipe for dumplings
Boiled dumplings dough