I am proud of my roots and want to give you a new way to cook wild game. Join me in the kitchen as I teach you a family recipe — and put a WILD spin on it with ELK MEAT!
In my first dabble into filming and editing my own cooking video, please see the video I put together for you below, or if you prefer, keep scrolling past my awkwardness for the written recipe.
I’m just going to apologize in advance — my family isn’t the best with exact measurements in the kitchen and the below are all approximate measurements.
When I follow a recipe, I never follow it exactly — I eyeball a lot and always end up adding or omitting things to fit my taste. I believe this is how cooking should be: fun and filled with lots of experimenting! I suggest you do the same and tailor this to your preferences!
Ingredients:
1.5 pounds each of ground elk and ground pork
2 packages pre-made dumpling wrappers
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp white pepper
1 tsp mushroom/ chicken bullion powder
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2c water
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 egg
3c chive
1c Green onion
1/4c ginger, or to taste (I recommend starting with a third of that, and working your way up)
NOTE: the above makes about 60 dumplings. Adjust your measurements accordingly if you want to make more (or less) :)
a
Directions:
Prep veggies: finely chop chives, green onion, and mince ginger. Combine chive and green onion into a bowl. Add olive and sesame oils and mix to coat. Sprinkle in half the salt, mix.
Mix ground elk and pork in a bowl. While mixing, slowly add in water to moisten the meat never letting water pool at the bottom of the bowl (you won’t need all the water). If you add too much, use a paper towel to blot the excess water from the meat.
Mix in soy sauce, add remaining salt, pepper, sugar, mushroom seasoning/chicken bullion, and egg.
Add in ginger to taste. Start small — you can cook the mixture in mini meatball form in a pan on the stove to taste, then adjust ginger (or any other ingredients) accordingly.
Combine veggie and meat mixtures.
Get a small bowl of water and grab the dumpling wrappers. Watch my video to learn how to wrap (skip to 6:33).
Wrap, wrap, wrap dem dumplin’s! When wrapping, make sure to cover the dumplings so they do not dry out.
There are two methods to cook: boil and pan-fried. (My fav is pan-fried!)
Boil: Bring a pot of water to boil. Gently place in dumplings, taking care not to overcrowd the pot (or they will stick together). You will have to cook the dumplings in multiple batches. Gently stir/move them around to make sure they do not stick to the bottom of the pot. Keep it at a soft boil — water that boils too hard will cause the dumplings to break. I like to keep a cup of cold water close by. When the water boils too hard, I’ll add some cold water in to bring it back down. When dumplings float (about 10 mins), they are done! Scoop out and enjoy!
Pan-fried: Boil dumplings as mentioned above. Bring a pan to medium-high heat. Coat dumplings with non-stick spray. Add dumplings to pan, gently moving them around; turning them until golden brown (about 5mins).
Then enjoy with your favorite dumpling or hot sauce!
I love sharing my heritage with you. Please let me know if you enjoyed this and want more of it! I would be honored if you tried out this recipe -- and PLEASE let me know if you make these and what your thoughts are -- I'd truly love to know! Plus, we gotta prove my mom wrong that someone out there will go through with this process. Its labor intensive, I know, but SOOOO worth it in the end!
See you in my next dabble!
Alex