Review: Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings, Heritage Pork

@WholeFoods

$9.99

This post contains Amazon affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you click on and buy through the links in the post. The Amazon website and Amazon affiliate links have the same product prices

Does anyone else struggle with making potstickers aka dumplings at home? The internet has always made it look so easy. Plunk a couple frozen dumplings in a pan. Fry them up in a little oil, add water, simmer, cover, and cook. Voila! Perfect dumplings, just like what you would get at your local Chinese restaurant.

Ok, I have never had that experience. And tonight was no different. Against my better judgement, I decided to follow the directions on the back of the bag. Maybe I’m impatient and they just needed to cook longer. Maybe I had the wrong type of frying pan. Maybe I didn’t add enough oil. Who knows!? The damn things have always stuck and broke open. *sigh* This time, about half the dumplings stuck and half turned out alright.

Personally, my fool-proof method is to add frozen dumplings to cold water, bring to a boil, drain the water, turn the heat down, return the pan to the heat, let any remaining water evaporate, add oil of your choice, and fry those bad boys up! Works every time; I’m just saying.  

Anyways, these were decent frozen dumplings. And given the price of the dumplings and the ingredient of Berkshire pork, you could consider them to be high-end frozen dumplings. I had them with soy sauce *amazon link*, chili oil, and vinegar sauce. The pork had a nice savory taste. I got notes of sweetness and butteryness in some of the dumplings (not all though). Most of the dumplings were more chive forward with mild onion and garlic flavors leading the way. The dumplings where I could really taste the pork, everything came together beautifully and those were perfect bites.

The dough was common dumpling dough. It was advertised as “thin dumpling wrappers”. This had me thinking wonton-thin. No. These were slightly thicker then your average gyoza. That said, the dough is not bad. It was just not what I was expecting/hoping for. All in all, I appreciated the care in the quality of ingredients. If you're craving some high-end dumplings to make at home, check them out *amazon link*.

Glad I tried it: Yep

Would I buy it again: If wanting quality over quantity - yes, and sometimes you just want to eat a bunch of dumplings and not pay $1/dumpling