Most Asian have obsession of chewy texture of food. I like various types of ricecakes, mochi, any food made of rice flour or glutinous rice flour, or any food with similar texture. This potato dumpling or potato ball is one of the simplest Korean comfort food. The chewiness is from natural potato starch. For those who has hesitation on chewy texture, I would suggest you to have a try. This dumpling is soft mainly and mildly chewy.
Usually these potato dumplings are cooked and served with soup. Any Korean vegetable soup or kimchi soup would be nice. Or just like I did, a quick and light Chinese meatball and vegetable soup is no wrong. Be open-minded on food anyway.
Ingredients – serve 2 to 3
- For the dumplings
Potato, 2, about 700g, try using those starchy types, such as baking potato; - For the soup
Ground pork, about 200g;
Mushroom, any type;
Bok choy, a big handful;
Carrot, sliced, 1 cup;
Ginger, thinly sliced, 10g;
Chicken stock, 1 box, 500ml;
Sesame oil, sugar, salt, cornstarch.
(for vegetarian, skip the meatball and use mushrooms, tofu or any vegetables, for the broth, use vegetable stock)
How to do –
1. Let’s prepare the dumplings first. Potatoes peeled and grated. Grate the potato thinly and finely till it’s almost mashed. In a big bowl, layer a big kitchen cloth, put the grated potato on, wrap the potato, then squeeze hard and thigh to press the juice onto the bowl;
2. In another big bowl with enough water, put the potato bag in, rinse with your hands and wash the starch from potato, squeeze the bag hard. You could repeat this step once or twice and try to get the starch as much as possible. Pour all water in a big bowl, let it sit aside for at least 15 minutes;
This step is very important. Try to rinse all starch from the potato. Also squeeze the potato hard till all liquid squeezed out. The potato lump should be dry.
3. The starch would sink. Pour off the clear pinkish water on top carefully and you would get the white potato starch at the bottom;
4. Squeeze the grated potato till no liquid on. Then mix well with the starch. Knead the dough well. Then roll to bitesize (quail egg size) balls, roll firmly;
5. Now I would make a quick soup. Mix pork mince with 1tsp of sugar and 1/2tsp of salt, 1tbsp of sesame oil, 1tbsp of cornstarch; make bitesize meatball; then pan-fry till almost cooked; in a big soup pot, put in chicken stock, 500ml of water, and ginger, bring to boil; add in the potato dumplings and cook for about 3 minutes till they float on water top; put in meatballs and other vegetables, cook for 3 more minutes; have a taste and season with a little more salt or sugar.
