Jade cabbage dumplings with pork and sour cabbage

Stir a third teaspoon of salt into 150g of room temperature water until dissolved.

Pour the salted water slowly into 300g of high protein flour, stirring with a spatula, then gather it by hand; dumpling dough is hard and takes work.

Cover with a slightly damp towel and rest 15 minutes.

Blanch the spinach in boiling water about 10 seconds, rinse with cold water to cool instantly and shake off excess water.

Weigh the spinach, add a third teaspoon of salt and blend smooth.

Pour the puree into 300g of wheat flour little by little, gather by hand, cover with a damp towel and rest 15 minutes.

Knead each rested dough smooth in a couple of minutes, shape into a log and rest 40 minutes.

Dice 350g of sour cabbage finely and set aside.

Blend the garlic, ginger, Sichuan peppercorns and 5 tbsp water, then pass through a sieve to make aromatic water.

Mix the ground pork with the soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking wine, five spice powder and sesame oil, then pour in the aromatic water.

Stir the filling in one direction about 5 minutes to stretch the meat proteins into strands that tangle into a net; reversing breaks the structure and the filling will not hold.

Add the sour cabbage and diced scallion last, since the vegetables make stirring harder; cook a teaspoon of the filling in the microwave to taste for salt if unsure.

Roll the white dough into a thin even log; roll the green dough into a long rectangle sheet the same length, thinner at the joining edges.

Wet a hand and tap the green sheet, lay the white log in the middle, wrap tightly without trapping air and pinch the edge closed.

Roll thinner and longer, splitting the log if needed, then divide into 25 pieces of about 17-18g each; dust with flour and cover with a damp towel.

Flatten a piece by hand and roll it into a round wrapper about 3 inches across, thick in the middle and thin at the edge, turning with the left hand while rolling with the right.

Put filling in the middle, stretch the wrapper with thumbs and fingers, fold in half, pinch the edge and squeeze with the hollow of the palm so the green is the leaf top and the white the stem.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, swirl it with a spatula into a vortex and drop the dumplings in so they flow instead of sinking and sticking.

Keep the heat at medium and keep swirling; when it returns to a simmer add half a cup of cold water.

When it simmers again and the dumplings float, add another half cup of cold water; this keeps the temperature below boiling so the moisture inside does not evaporate fast and burst the skin.

Fish them out onto a plate.

To store, freeze them spaced apart in a container and boil them from frozen without defrosting.