Vegetable Dumplings

Vegetable dumpling is essentially a chinese dish according to Tarla Dalal's mini series cook book "7 dinner menus". It was a nice variation for us from the usual rotis that we have for dinner. The dumplings are as such easy to make, but rolling out the dough might be time consuming, especially if doing in large quantities..Thankfully, for me my MIL did that job and I stuffed the prepared vegetable in the rolled out dough and pressure cooked it..

The dumplings tasted very nice with the red sauce inspite of not adding asparagus and mushroom in the stuffing mixture which the original recipe called for. I also substitued half of maida with wheat flour. Next time I am planning to subtitute 3/4th of maida with wheat flour and instead of adding soya sauce to the vegetable mixture, I will add masala powder to give it a desi touch. I will completely omit making the black sauce(nobody bothered to have it) and will increase the quantity of red sauce.(It seemed more like chutney to me, it was too good)

Ingredients for the dough to make around 30 medium sized dumplings
All purpose flour/Maida: 1 1/2 cups
Wheat Flour/Aata: 1 1/2 cups
Water: to make the dough
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the vegetable filling
cabbage: 2 cups(shredded according to the book. But I chopped to very small pieces)
carrot: 1 cup(shredded according to the book. But I chopped to very small pieces)
Onion: 1/2 cup(chooped. Optional, it was not used in the original recipe)
Mushrooms: 1/4 cup(finely chopped, I did not use it)
Asparagus: 1/4 cup(finely chopped, I did not use it)
Ginger: 2 tsp(finely chopped)
Pepper Powder: 3/4 tsp
Soya sauce: 2 tbsp
Salt to taste
Refined Oil: 2 tbsp(I used olive oil)

Ingredients for the red sauce
Tomato: 1(medium sized)
Garlic cloves: 3
Dry red chillies: 2(broken into pieces)
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the black sauce
Soya Sauce: 1/8 cup(The original recipe called for 1/2 cup, but I reduced the quantity)
Honey: 1 tsp
Vinegar: 1/2 tsp
Sesame seeds: 1/2 tsp(roasted)
Salt to taste

Procedure to make the dough
Combine all the ingredients in for the dough and mix well. Consistency should be that of roti dough.

Procedure to make the filling
1. Heat oil in a kadai/pan and add ginger. Saute less than a minute.
2. Add all the vegetables and saute in medium-low flame so that it becomes soft.(around 5 minutes)
3. Add salt, soy sauce and pepper powder and mix well.
4. Put of the flame and keep aside.

Procedure to make the dumplings
1. Divide the dough into 30 equal portions or more depending upon the size of the dumplings.
2. Roll out each portion into a circle, the size of medium sized puri.
3. Place a tbsp of filling at the centre of the rolled dough.
4. Bring together the edges and pich them with fingertips so that it is sealed properly.
5. Repeat the same with the remaining dough and filling.
6. Steam in a greased steamer for about 10 minutes. I steamed the dumplings by placing them in the idli moulds and keeping the idli mould in the pressure cooker. (Cook in the pressure cooker till steam starts coming out, without putting the "weight" for the lid. It would take around 5 minutes)
7. Open the pressure cooker once the steam completely dies out.
8. Serve hot with red and black sauces.

Procedure to make the red sauce
1. Boil a vessel full of water and put the tomato in it for around 10 minutes. Remove, peel and keep aside.
2. Dry roast the red chillies till they are crisp.
3. Combine tomato, garlic, dry red chillies and salt and blend to a smooth sauce.

Procedure to make the black sauce
Combine all the ingredients in the black sauce and mix well.