Watch: To Make the Best Dumplings, Wrap Them in Chicken Skin

Tips and tricks guru Clifford Endo is at it again this time with a crispy, crunchy, deliciously decadent gluten-free work-around for making dumplings at home. In place of normal dumpling wrapper, Endo uses chicken skin — plus a little bit of "meat glue" — to enclose his dumpling filling and double the meaty flavor. Watch the video above for a how-to, and follow along with the recipe below.

Meat Glue-ten Free Dumplings

1 lb ground pork
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 egg
2 tablespoon grated garlic
1 tablespoons grated ginger
2 tablespons thinly sliced scallions
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
15 pieces of chicken skin (best from thigh meat because they are square)
1 cup Activa RM (must be Activa brand made by Ajinomoto, they make food-grade transglutaminase; keep in the refrigerator or freezer.)
¼ c gochujang
¼ cup hoisin
¼ cup sherry vinegar
1 scallion
Sesame seeds

Equipment: cup or jar with cheesecloth, plastic wrap, pot of hot oil at 300 F

Combine dumpling ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly.

Pour your meat glue in your jar and affix cheesecloth over with the hollow lid or rubber band to hold it in place

On a plastic cutting board lay our your pieces of chicken skin. Using a tablespoon measuring spoon scoop 1–2 tablespoons of your mixture into the center of the skin. Dust thoroughly with meat glue and give it a smell. If you get the scent of wet dog then you know it’s active.

Gather the skin together making sure contact is made between the skin and filling. Twist the excess skin making the skin around the filling it tight. Then cover with plastic wrap and twist the wrapping putting pressure on the skin and filling so they stick together. Place them in the refrigerator overnight.

After resting overnight pull from fridge and unwrap the dumplings out of the plastic wrap. Fry in 300 F oil for 10–12 minutes. Depending on the thickness of the skin it could be 8–10 minutes. Do a tester first to gauge your cook time; you are looking for the outside to be brown and crispy and the inside of the pork to be just cooked but still juicy. When done, pull from fryer and drain on a cooling rack or plate lined with paper towels.

While you dumplings rest, mix sauce ingredients (the gochujang, hoisin
and sherry vinegar) together. Then thinly slice scallion on the bias.

Plate dumplings. Add scallions. Drizzle with sauce. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Become a dumpling gangster.

* If you don’t have meat glue, or just plain don’t want to buy it and still want to eat these dumplings(because they are dope), just tie off the beggars purse dumpling with butcher twine. Gather in the same way you would with the glue in to a little ball and tie with the twine leaving the excess skin loose above your knot.

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