Chive, Egg, and Mushroom Pockets (韭菜盒子; with sourdough discard option!)
These chive, egg, and mushroom pockets are my version of Chinese chive pockets (or boxes, the literal translation of their name). Chinese chives, aka garlic chives, have a pungent flavor that their name only partly captures. It can come off as too strong to people who haven’t used it before, but to me, it smells like making dumplings with my family because we often make pork-chive dumplings.
Chive pockets usually contain Chinese chives, egg, vermicelli noodles, and maybe dried shrimp or mushrooms. I omitted the vermicelli and dried shrimp to make it more chive-forward and vegetarian…and because I don’t like dried shrimp. Of course, these are customizable and you can add/omit ingredients to your taste. See the variations below.
Ingredients
- Flour: Use all-purpose for the dough. If you use 100g of sourdough starter, use only 250g flour.
- Water: Use boiling water to first gelatinize some of the starch so that the dough is soft, and use the remaining water at room temp to dissolve the yeast and finish the dough.
- Yeast: This is added so that any decorative crimping doesn’t taste gummy/doughy, you could probably sub it out with an equal amount of baking powder or just omit it with very little loss of texture.
- Chinese/garlic chives: You can find these at your local Asian grocery store. While you could technically sub them out with regular chives/another ingredient, your final dish would not taste anything like Chinese chive pockets since their unique garlicky, pungent flavor is hard to replicate.
- Egg: Two of the eggs will be scrambled, one will be raw and hold together the filling.
- Shiitake mushrooms: These have a super umami flavor and meaty texture, but you could also sub other mushrooms. If using dried shiitakes, soak them at the start.
- Seasonings: I use soy sauce in the eggs, salt, ginger powder, white pepper powder, and sesame oil. I’ve also seen people add dried shrimp and oyster sauce.
Folding the Pockets
- Roll the dough thin and into a large oval/rectangle. Add filling to one half.
- Crimp or press the edges together to prevent leakage during cooking. I usually make mine too big (oops) but the dough should be able to stretch a bit.
Similar Chinese Recipes!
- Chinese Flower Rolls (花卷)
- Soft Scallion Pancakes (coming soon!)
Chive, Egg, and Mushroom Pockets (韭菜盒子; with sourdough discard option)
Course: Main, Sides, Snacks, Dinner, LunchCuisine: ChineseDifficulty: Medium5-8
servings25
minutes15
minutesIngredients
- Dough (measurements in parentheses for using 100g sourdough discard)
300g (2½ cups) all-purpose flour (250g)
80g (⅓ cup) boiling water
100g (¼ cup + 3 tbsp) room-temp water (50g)
¼ tsp yeast
- Filling
3 shiitake mushrooms (fresh, or dried and reconstituted)
180g (a big bunch) Chinese chives/garlic chives
3 eggs
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
pinch each of ginger powder, white pepper powder
salt to taste
Directions
- If your shiitake mushrooms are dried, soak them in warm water while you make the dough so that they’ll be ready by the time you make the filling.
- Add the boiling water to the flour and mix until the water is evenly dispersed.
- Dissolve the sourdough discard (if using) and yeast in the room-temp water. Once the flour + boiling water is cooled to body temp, add the yeast water to it and knead to form a soft (but not sticky) dough. This takes about 10 minutes in a stand mixer and a little longer by hand. Add some more flour/water as needed, but make sure the dough isn’t too sticky. Let the dough rest while you prep the filling.
- Beat two of the eggs with the soy sauce. Scramble them in a pan, breaking them up into small chunks and remove from the heat once most of the egg mixture has set.
- Clean and chop the chives into small pieces. Add the scrambled eggs to the chives in a large mixing bowl.
- Chop the shiitake mushrooms into small pieces and add to the chives. It’s okay if they aren’t totally soft—as long as they are chewable, they will absorb enough moisture from the chives to be tender after cooking.
- Add sesame oil, ginger powder, and white pepper powder to the chives and mix. Add salt to taste.
- Stir the last raw egg into the chive mixture to help it hold together.
- Cut the dough into 8 pieces (or however many you want to make). Keep the other pieces covered while you roll one of them out into a thin (¾ cm/⅓ in, no need to be precise) oval/rectangle/symmetrical shape.
- Add filling onto one half, leaving a small border around the edges and fold over the other half of dough to seal it. Optionally crimp the edges or just press tightly to avoid leakage. See blog post for photos.
- In a hot pan with a thin coating of oil, cook the chive pockets until both sides are golden brown and the dough isn’t raw/gummy. If your chive pocket is large, you can add a splash of water in the pan and cook covered to steam-cook the inside faster.
- Serve hot! This makes 5-8 pockets depending on how full you fill them.
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