How do I make a meat-stuffed fritter / fried dumpling?

Question

I have a bunch of stewing beef in the freezer, and I've had an idea for a dish I want to try making. I am unsure about the technical aspects of it though.

The plan is this:

• Make a very dry, spiced (cinnamon, cloves, star anise, ...) beef stew
• Make a yeast-based dough (maybe with some additional spice seeds), proof it
• Roll dough flat and thin (maybe 3-4 mm), cut in small squares, fold meat in there and close up
• End up with ball shaped dumplings (no larger than a golf ball)
• Fry'em up in the deep fat frier at around 170 C so they're nice and done and crispy
• Yum?

I think this sounds reasonable, but I've never eaten anything like this. The closest I've come to frying anything like this is:

• Fish and chips: beer batter with baking powder
• Oliebollen (Dutch beignets): yeast based dough with 100% hydration
• Donuts: another yeast-based dough, with lower hydration

I'm worried about:

• The dumplings breaking open and meat spilling out during the frying
• Dough being rubbery rather than crispy

Any advice how to approach making this dish? What are dishes around the world that look like this?

Answer 1

I'd recommend using your beef to make Ragout. There are many recipes for ragout, but a Dutch beef ragout (called 'rundvlees ragout' or 'runderragout') may be able to serve some of your ideas.

A ragout can be served with/in puff-pastry. That's if you are wanting something with a 'doughy' outside. This isn't deep-fried, but goes into the oven, but the dough ends up nice and crispy. If you want to make something like this, look for recipes for 'rundvlees ragout pasteitjes' or 'ragoutbroodjes'

If you really want something fried, I'd look into recipes for 'rundvleeskroketten' or 'bitterballen'. These are ragout-filled snacks with a breaded outside, that are deep-fried. These take some practice though, because if you hand-make them and not buy them from the frozen-food section at a store, there's indeed a good chance the outside may crack and spill ragout.

Answer 2

You're essentially inventing a samosa, only with leavened dough. Another similar dish is cheburek.

I think the problem with the leavened dough will be that, due to being spongy, it will let the juices from the filling leak out during deep frying, spoiling the oil and making the filling dry(ish).

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Motivated by downvotes, I thought it useful to test three dough types for deep-frying with wet filling. I would never try beef stew for the filling (which the OP wishes to cook), so I used what I normally use -- 2:1 ground lamb and beef mix with 1/2 volume onion, herbs and spices.

I made three dough versions: one for chebureki (with boiling water and some egg), one for samosas (following this recipe, first time ever), and one for yeast-leavened piroshki (from here, in Russian though). The leavened dough was proofed for one hour, and an extra ~30 minutes after making the piroshki/dumplings.

I used the same ping-pong-ball-sized pieces of dough, rolled thin, and teaspoons of filling throughout, like so

The leavened dough thickness was about 3 mm, as the OP suggested, while the other variants were thinner, about 2 mm.

Frying in sunflower oil, at about 170ºC.

On the surface, the results were fine:

(cheburek on the left, samosa in the middle, yeast (piroshki) dough on the right).

However, as I expected, the piroshki dough absorbed most of the filling juices, making the filling a bit dry and the dough slightly soggy.

Not too bad, but not too good either. This is what the cheburek looked like, for comparison:

I messed up the samosas, this being the first time I've tried them; dough must be way thinner

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In conclusion, when deep-frying the leavened dough, the filling juices did not leak and spoil the frying oil. However, they did permeate the dough, making it a bit soggy and the filling drier than one would like. Overall, I'll stick to my original suggestion not to use leavened dough for "dumplings".

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Twelve hours later: leftover samosas remained somewhat crispy in the morning. However, the leavened dough "piroshok" acquired the consistency of a rubber dog chew toy.

Answer 3

The closest dish I can think of would be the Brazilian coxinha (co-SHEEN-ya), which is (generally) shredded chicken wrapped in a ball of dough, rolled in bread crumbs, and fried. the main difference would be that the dough is often chewy rather than fluffy (which comes down to a relative lack of leavening). Seems like a good place to start.

The dumplings breaking open and meat spilling out during the frying

This will happen if either the balls are not well-sealed or the filling boils during cooking. For the former, start with a refrigerated stew and be careful to keep stew off any parts of the dough you're going to seal; and when sealing, shear the dough around a bit between your fingers to make the join secure. For the latter... just don't overcook. Figure out how long is too long. :-)

Dough being rubbery rather than crispy

Rubbery and crispy aren't really opposites here. To avoid rubberiness, you may want to consider using a baking powder-leavened dough rather than a yeasted dough: rolling the dough out is going to knock out most of the gas. If you do use a yeasted dough, allow for some rise after forming the balls. Crispiness should be basically automatic, though. Making donuts not overly crispy is more difficult. But do consider rolling in bread crumbs.

Keeping the oil temperature on the low side will also help avoid rubberiness. You want the entire thickness of the dough to thoroughly cook before the outside over-browns. I would do my first experiment around 150.

Answer 4

I recommend egg rolls, wontons or using croissant dough.

The egg roll and wontons have "skins" or dough that is already prepared. All you need to do is place the filling in the middle of the skin, seal it up, then deep fry it. I've also used the wonton skins to add to a soup instead of deep frying.

I place the filling inside a rectangle of croissant dough (smoothing the "tear" lines before filling). I then deep fry these things.

See the Russian recipe for "piroshki".

Search the internet for "Alton Brown dumplings", as he has many shows about dumplings.

Answer 5

This reminds me of Chinese Baozi which are almost exactly your ingredients but the final dumplings are steamed instead of deep fried. Steaming is much gentler than deep frying so the risk of dumplings breaking open and meat spilling out is much smaller. The resulting taste is quite different though, so you may have to experient if your dumplings can stand deep frying.