Mandu

Mandu is a Korean dumpling made from a thin wheat dough wrapper folded around a savoury filling. It is one of the most common dumpling types in Korean home cooking and street food.

What it really is

Mandu wrappers are made from wheat flour and water, rolled thin and cut into rounds or squares. The classic filling is minced pork or beef mixed with tofu, glass noodles, chopped spring onion, garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil, with onion or kimchi added in many regional and home versions. Each dumpling is filled, sealed by pressing the edges, and then cooked.

Mandu are cooked in several ways: boiled, steamed, or pan-fried until the base is crisp. Mandu-guk is a soup of beef broth with dumplings, often served on New Year's Day. Mandu are often confused with Chinese jiaozi and Japanese gyoza, which share the wheat wrapper and pleated seal, but Korean mandu usually use a thinner wrapper, more tofu and glass noodles in the filling, and are often eaten in soup.

How it's served

• Eaten as a side or snack with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, vinegar and chilli powder.
• Added to a clear beef broth and served as mandu-guk, with spring onion and sliced egg as garnish.
• Pan-fried mandu are served as a starter or banchan-style side dish.
• Steamed mandu are eaten hot, often as part of a shared meal or at street stalls.

How to write it on the menu

• Name the filling on the menu, for example pork and tofu mandu or kimchi mandu, and state whether the dumplings are steamed, boiled or pan-fried.
• Flag wheat (the wrapper), soy (soy sauce and tofu) and sesame (sesame oil) on the allergen list.
• Mention if the dumplings are served in beef broth (mandu-guk), since the soup is not suitable for vegetarian guests.