Potsticker Party

Yum!

Asia: Why would you put stickers on pots?
Me: They’re not that kind of stickers. Think Chinese pierogi.
Asia: Oh, that’s worth doing.
And it was.

Back in January the Dallas Morning News ran a fabulous full page article on how to make oriental dumplings, aka potstickers. I immediately thought, “We have to do this.” But the time wasn’t right until recently, when I gathered a group of foodies for a potsticker party.

First, the dough:

The glove is to keep dough out from under my fingernails

2 1/2 cups AP flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, 1 cup cold water. Mix & knead. So far, so good. Unfortunately, while I made sure we had all the ingredients on hand, I missed the part about letting the dough rest for 30 minutes. Twice. Fortunately, Laura brought lumpia.

Lumpia. We don't know why it's called that either.

They’re kind of egg roll-esque and delicious.

So we tucked up our dough in a little damp blankie for its nap(s), tucked into the lumpia, and moved on to the filling and dipping sauce.

Nitey-nite little dough ball

Yumminess in progress

I’d link to the recipe on the DMN site but couldn’t find it, so with apologies for “borrowing” their recipe, here it is:
Dipping Sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1 fresh chile (we used chile paste)
Mix all ingredients together for 3/4 cup of dipping perfection.

Filling final & ready to...fill.

Then there’s the filling:
Pork & Cabbage Filling
3/4 pound ground pork
2 tablespoons dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
1 teaspoon minced or grated ginger
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3/4 pound napa cabbage, finely chopped.
Mix together everything but cabbage; mix in cabbage just before filling dumplings. It claims it’ll make enough filling for 40 dumplings but we came out with at least twice that.

About that cabbage: the flipping thing was ginormous and cost me 8 dollars. EIGHT DOLLARS. For a cabbage! On the plus side, I used it for this, made a salad out of it for a choir potluck, and still have half the flipping thing in the fridge.

So then it came time to put it all together. Our nicely-rested dough was rolled into a log…

Just like play-doh only better-tasting.

and cut into pieces with dental floss.

Dental floss--my fave way to cut dough rolls.

Then all we had to do was smush and roll the pieces into rough circles–

Smushed & ready

fill them (you can’t use much)–

Potsticker in progress

and crimp the edges.

Not as easy as the paper made it sound

Now here’s the nifty part, the “potsticker” part of the affair. To cook these little guys, you place them in a skillet that has a thin coating of oil on the bottom, that has been heated to medium-high heat.

Into the pan they go.

No crowding! Then you add water to the pan, halfway up the sides of the dumplings. Put a lid on it, turn the heat up a bit, and let the water boil away. Reduce the heat and let them cook about 30 seconds to a minute more. (Any more and the dumplings become one with the pan. Sticky is one thing, stuck is another.) This last step gives them a lovely crust.

Not too stuck...this time.

Then all you have to do is pull out the chopsticks, pour everyone a personal container of dipping sauce, and dive in!

Dinner is served!

So. Yummy. I’ll be doing this again…and I’m trying to think of other uses for that fantabulous dipping sauce.

And now I think I want to make pierogi again.