I assume you refer to the meat filling of an Oriental style dumpling? The key to keeping the filling from drying out it to provide either fat or fluid to the filling before using it. You need to have a ground meat with about 20% fat content, or if it's very lean, you can add in a couple spoons of vegetable oil. If you want to avoid fat, you can also opt to beat in a liquid, in the form or broth or water, with broth to match the meat being the first choice obviously. Or, you can add in plain gelatin softened in broth or water. If you are adding oil, broth, water or the gelatin to your ground meat, you want to beat it and add in until you get a mixture that is fairly soft, almost easily dropped from a spoon consistency. You can add more liquid to obtain that, and you'd be surprised how much liquid some ground meat can actually absorb. If you use ground pork, it's not usually a problem. However, the leaner the meat- here's looking at shrimp or chicken breast- then you really do need some fat and liquid or it's going to be dry. Ground beef can also end up dry, so it's worth it to add in the liquid. If you are really nervous about how your filling is likely to cook up, make a test dumpling. That will let you know not only if it's going to dry out, but if your seasonings need adjusting as well.
1 Comment