The first time I tried to make gluten-free dumplings, they worked out beautifully. Indeed, the existence of this blog is largely down to our desire to record those things that go well. For the record: I have not yet replicated those wonderful dumplings, but am working on it.

Cornmeal buckwheat dumplings.


Recipe 1: Cornmeal buckwheat soy dumplings

  • 1/3 cup (75 g) yellow cornmeal
  • 1/3 cup (35 g) soy flour
  • 1/3 cup (55 g) buckwheat flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 cup (60 g) grated suet
  • cold water (about 1/3 cup?)
  • Salt/pepper/seasoning to taste

Method

  • Whisk together the dry ingredients

  • Mix in the suet until evenly blended

  • Add cold water bit by bit until the dough just sticks together.

  • You should be able to shape the dough into small balls (see picture under recipe 2).

  • Drop the balls into a simmering pot of stew or soup

  • Heat for 10-15 minutes at least, or until ready to eat

  • The dumplings should float when ready

Verdict

Tasty. We like the earthiness added by the buckwheat, and the hearty texture from the cornmeal. However, I do not expect these to hold up. If you want something that will turn into a thickener, these are perfect. I still need to work on the balance a bit, but this batch went down well.




Recipe 2: Masa dumplings

  • 1 cup gluten free flour (my mixture: 75 g masa harina; 5 g tapioca flour; 30 g garfava flour)
  • 1 cup (50 g) grated suet
  • pinch salt
  • pepper to taste
  • Cold water

Method

See above: the same method applies for these as for the cornmeal buckwheat dumplings.

Mix the dough until it just comes together

Mix the dough until it just comes together

Then form bite-sized balls

Then form bite-sized balls

Verdict

I actually made two versions of the masa dumplings: in one batch, I added a bit of xanthan gum and baking powder. Those fell apart immediately. The others had a nice texture and were quite light, but fell apart overnight. I suspect that masa is not the best flour to use but will need to do more tests to see if it is the culprit (a while back I had another batch of masa dumplings that fell apart). In other words, nice taste and texture, but only good for one meal. After that, they become thickener.

Some notes

  1. The first thing is, note that when using weights there should be about double the weight of flour to fat (so, 100 g flour to 50 g fat). When using measuring cups, the amount of flour is about the same as fat (about 1 cup flour and 1 cup loosely shredded fat).

  2. From (1) it should be clear that the measurements for cups/weights do not always add up. This is because measuring cups are inherently less precise than scales. For instance, shredded suet has a lot of air in it, so don’t worry too much that I have noted a 10g difference in weight for the suet used in two recipes where I estimated it to be “about a cup”. If in doubt, use scales; in most cases, it is fine to give or take a few grams or milliliters.

  3. I do not normally use soy flour but had it to hand. For decent cornmeal dumplings, 1/3 cup cornmeal to 2/3 cup other gluten-free flour should work just fine. Fool around with different flours until you find a texture/taste that works for you.

  4. While I normally season the dumplings with black pepper, sometimes chili pepper, and with a dash of salt. I did not season the cornmeal buckwheat ones, and they tasted fine.

  5. I am not convinced that the xanthan gum is necessary in the second recipe; baking powder may not be, either. Experiment!

  6. If you cannot get suet, try freezing and then grating butter. One normally thinks of the suet as being shredded, but I buy a large frozen chunk from a local farm shop and grate it on demand.