I know what you’re thinking, we thought the same, “I wouldn’t know where to start cooking Chinese dumplings, let alone make them near as authentic as Grandma’s recipe”. Well fear not Mama Chen’s dumpling kits allows you to do just that from the comfort of your own home. With fond memories of her Grandma Chen teaching her how to make dumplings, Founder Michelle Liu wanted to share with people, not only the delicious flavours that have been passed down to her, but also the joy of learning how to make them. 

Each freshly prepared kit contains everything you need to create the perfect dumplings, cooking instructions, chilli oil, soy sauce and chopsticks. It really is hard to go wrong. We tried out the Little Emperors Pork Dumpling Kit, one of the newest dumpling kits on their menu. We received a beautifully packaged box of low fat pork mince, Chinese cabbage, shitake mushrooms, seasoning and dipping sauces. At £20 for 22 dumplings this was a bargain.

Now dumplings don’t seem easy to make. We were expecting the first few attempts at producing the perfectly shaped and crimped parcels to be an epic fail. With Mama Chen’s easy to follow recipe and online videos it was a dumpling doddle. Ok we messed up the first one a bit but it was still wonkily delicious and learning was all part of the fun. We wouldn’t dream of insulting Mama Chen by claiming our first attempt at dumplings were anywhere near as her master quality, but we aren’t going to lie, we were pretty chuffed with ourselves. The results were not only delicious and authentic tasting, but they looked the part too, and we thoroughly enjoyed making them.

The home dumpling kits are available to order at https://www.mamachens.co.uk 

If you can’t decide on what dumpling to try first, why not opt for the Full Moon tasting kit, where you can four different dumpling flavours.  

Written by Rick Hartley 

Photography by Nyla Sammons