To those who celebrate, happy Lunar New Year! Growing up, I didn’t really celebrate this holiday outside of eating tteok-guk, or Korean rice cake soup for free with my family at Korean restaurants, something much more plentiful back in the New York/New Jersey area.
Following the poll results on my Instagram, money bag dumplings won out over steamed fish by a landslide, which was not very surprising. I would still like to attempt steamed fish one day, maybe at my own leisure rather than a separate post. As with many other foods for this holiday, money bag dumplings symbolize good fortune and “overflowing” abundance, meant to resemble the money purses used to hold gold and silver in ancient China.
Making the Dish
There didn’t seem to be as many videos on TikTok or YouTube about money bag dumplings as I expected, but they provided just enough information for me to work with. Money bag dumplings essentially like regular dumplings, but assembled slightly differently and uses Hong Kong-style wrappers which are thinner than typical wrappers and yellow in color.
I followed the recipe by Woks of Life, using strips of green onion in place of the cilantro stems for the money bag ties. This recipe only called for vegetables for the filling, but I did see others with meat-based fillings.
The folding is more systematic than you might think based on the appearance – you create a cross shape and fold those sections in so that you get an 8-pointed star which collapses in to form the top of the money bag (see below).
As recipes instruct, you want to press where the tie would go, twist, and try to elongate the top part so that the tie can easily wrap around the base. The recipe I used did not call for water, but I would recommend using some to wet the edges like you would a regular dumpling to help secure the top – when I tried it dry, it kept opening back up, making it difficult to tie closed.
I chose to steam the dumplings, but you can fry them – there seemed to be a Thai variation that is fried only which I would love to try sometime.
Eating the Dish
These were almost too cute to eat! They tasted similar to what you would expect from normal vegetable dumplings – I was impatient and probably didn’t soak the dried shiitake mushrooms for as long as I should have which meant they were a bit tough to chew. The thinness of the wrapper meant it was much more delicate so you are probably better off eating these in one bite (they’re small enough anyway!).
Summary
Since these dumplings seemed to be more decorative than flavor-enhancing, I probably would only make these again if I’m trying to impress someone. The ties, while adorable, meant that I had several other steps to contend with – cutting, blanching, and icing the green onion in order to tie the money bags. They remind me that I would love to do a dim sum meal at home, what with the lack of restaurant options in town.
