Chinese Dumplings with Spicy Korean Dipping Sauce
Almost every week, I dedicate one day to making one of my favourite dishes. I’ve also aptly named that day – W.W.W. – Wonderful Wonton Wednesday.
Now, does it have to be a Wednesday when you make this recipe? Absolutely not. Any day of the week is good to stuff wontons/dumplings into my face.
Whether it be wontons, dumplings or potstickers, I need my weekly fix of yumminess and I love creating dipping sauces that are much better tasting than the standard store bought ones. And yes, one day I’m going to get off the “lazy train” and make dumplings from scratch, but for now, this sauce could earn the title of “My Favorite Dumpling Dipping Sauce”.
Why?
Because I love the blend of exotic flavours as an accompaniment to any steamed dumpling. In fact, I love dipping all kinds of things in this sauce – even my finger.
The best thing about this sauce, I find, is that it’s quite zippy. And by that I mean, there is a kick of spice that may be a bit much for some. I would play with the amount of chili flakes in this recipe before you serve it and your head catches on FI-YA. My standard rule of thumb is to add the chili flakes “to taste”. If it’s already too hot and you think you can’t turn back, you can. Just add in a bit more of the other ingredients such as the soy or rice wine vinegar to balance out the heat.
As with other fridge foraging recipes, you can get as creative as you like with this sauce. I wish you could come over and see what transpires when I conjure up new recipes. Half the time it’s hit and miss when I pull the entire fridge out onto the counter. That’s the beauty of thinking you know what you’re doing but really have no idea how it’s all going to come together. One issue I keep having is trying to REMEMBER what-the-heck I threw into the bowl. Lately, I’ve been really good about jotting down my ingredients on a notepad so I can translate them here on the blog FOR YOU!
What I also love about this recipe is that there’s no cooking involved in making this dipping sauce. Just mix together and in literally under 2 minutes, you are ready to dippity-do your dumps.
Don’t ever be intimidated to tinker with ingredients and use this sauce recipe as a base. Sometimes I’ll add a tablespoon of peanut butter, sometimes some sesame oil, and sometimes a bit of honey or lemon juice. Using your imagination is the key to making this sauce taste just the way you’d like it!
Last step? Just set out little bowls of this sauce and dunk, dunk away.
- Assorted Steamed Dumplings - store bought or homemade
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar, white sugar or honey
- 1½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons chopped scallions - optional (I didn't have any today but they are good!)
- ½ teaspoon crushed red chili flakes
- While you are steaming the dumplings, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Serve as a dipping sauce for the dumplings.
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