Happy Lunar New Year! It’s called Tsagaan Sar in Mongolia, and I this grandiose plan to make these dumplings called Buuz. Sometimes I can be overly ambitious, but somehow I sort of got these done.
These Buuz (Mongolian Dumplings) are traditionally made of yak or mutton meat. Enter my first dilemma: yak is impossible to find in greater Boston (no kidding, right?) and mutton too — or I had to buy a frozen 4 pound block and then what was I going to do with the rest of the mutton? Lamb would have been the obvious choice, but I don’t eat veal or lamb. Goat meat from the halal butcher right around the corner? I went with bison instead because I know what bison tastes like, I like it, and I could buy a 1/2 pound without having leftovers. Dilemma number 2 is that I actually am not great at making any dumplings, but I was bound-and-determined not to let the year of the dragon get me on the first day, so I managed to make a dozen, even if some of them are a little misshapen.
Final tidbit of trivia? Buuz are evidently served with ketchup. Yup, ketchup. Because ketchup is a delicacy in Mongolia. Or something. Although I guess that I could see if being a hard thing to get in Ulaanbaatar. Again, this seemed a bit strange to me, so I mixed together my usual dumpling dipping sauce. That wasn’t in the steamer basket when I steamed the buuz; I just put it there for presentation.
So, Happy New Year! May you have a prosperous, happy and healthy year.
Ingredients
for the wrappers
1 cup all-flour
1/3 cups boiling water
for the filling
1/2 pound mutton or yak meat*, coarsely ground
1 small yellow onion, finely minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (optional)
for the dipping sauce (optional)**
2 tablespoons cup red wine vinegar
1 heaping tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons minced scallions
Directions
Mix the flour and water together and knead until it forms a smooth dough. I did it all by hand in a work bowl but you can also use a food processor. Allow the dough to rest under a moistened towel for at least 30 minutes or up to 90 minutes.
Coarsely grind your meat and add in remaining ingredients. Stir to incorporate.
Roll the dumpling wrapper into a long snake and then cut it into 12 pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll each piece into a disk, 3 inches in diameter. Every recipe that I read said to keep the center a little thicker than the rim, so I used the rolling pin, but then stretch a little at the edges. Place a walnut sized piece of meat on each wrapper and pinch the ends of the wrapper together in your desired shape. Evidently there is no right or wrong way to shape your dumplings, so I did a bit of trial and error. Lots of error, actually.
Steam the dumplings for about 20 minutes in a steamer basket inside a pot with a tight-fitting lid. In the meantime, mix together your dipping sauce. Serve buuz as an appetizer or a main meal.
*Yak and mutton are hard to find in urban Boston. And I don’t eat lamb (or veal), so I had to improvise. I went with bison, because the other option would have been goat meat and I don’t think that it would have been fatty enough. Also, a bison and a yak kind of look the same, if you stretch your imagination a bit.
** I read a number of places that Buuz are often served with ketchup. Yes, ketchup. Evidently this is because ketchup is a sought after delicacy from “the West”. I couldn’t quite get that to jive in my head, so I made this little sauce instead.
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