Chinese Dumplings Potstickers From Scratch Food

POTSTICKERS

Steps:

• Shiitake Mushroom: Place the mushrooms in a bowl and pour over plenty of boiled water. Leave for 20 minutes or until rehydrated. Squeeze out excess water, then finely chop.
• Cabbage: Place cabbage in a bowl with salt. Toss with fingers, then set aside for 15 minutes. Squeeze out excess liquid from cabbage using hands.
• Filling: Place cabbage, mushrooms and remaining Filling ingredients in a bowl. Mix with your hands until well combined.

POTSTICKERS RECIPE (WITH POTSTICKER DOUGH)

Steps:

• To a large bowl, measure in the flour and the salt. Pour in the boiled water and stir the flour immediately and vigorously with a large wooden spoon until the flour resembles loose crumbles (about 30 seconds). Pour in the iced-cold water (discard the ice first, but make sure you have correct measurement of water). Stir vigorously again for 30 seconds or until a shaggy dough begins to form. Set aside spoon and use your hands to knead the dough in the bowl, while picking up flour/dough on the sides of the bowl. Knead for 2 minutes in the bowl. Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface. No need to dust the work surface with flour - unless the dough really sticks). The dough should be soft and elastic enough that kneading is very easy. Continue to knead your dough for another 3-5 minutes. As you knead the dough, it should become more smooth. In a medium sized bowl, plop in the dough ball, cover dough loosely with a barely damp paper towel and then cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let rest for 20 minutes while you prepare the filling and the dipping sauce.
• In a bowl, mix the shredded cabbage with 1/4 teaspoon of salt (1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt, if using.) Set aside while you move on to next step of recipe.
• In a separate bowl, mix the ground pork with soy sauce, ground pepper, cornstarch, rice wine (if using) and sesame oil. Add in the chives, water chestnuts and mushrooms.
• Back to the cabbage - grab a handful of cabbage, squeeze hard to expel the water into the sink. Add the dry cabbage into the bowl with the rest of the filling ingredients. Mix well. You can cook a spoonful of filling in a small frying pan for a taste, if you'd like.
• Turn out the rested dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough in half, keep unused half under the damp paper towel to prevent from drying out. Roll out the other half into a long snake, about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Cut into approximately 20 even pieces. Take 1 piece, gather up the edges and pinch together, forming a taut, round surface. Roll between palms to form ball. Squash between flat palms to flatten into disk. Use rolling pin to roll out to 3-1/2 inch diameter. Try to make the edges of wrapper thinner than the center. Repeat for remaining dough. If you don't have a helper on hand to fold the potstickers, keep wrappers under cover (plastic wrap or barely damp paper towel) to prevent drying out. Fill and fold potstickers according to the instructions and photos above in the post. Place folded potstickers on a floured piece of parchment or tin foil-lined baking sheet to prevent sticking.
• Mix together dipping sauce ingredients. Set aside until ready to serve.
• Have 1/4 cup water and a tight-fitting lid for your pan at the ready, by your stove. Heat a large, nonstick frying or saute pan over medium heat. When hot, swirl in a little cooking oil, just enough to swirl around. Carefully lay potstickers into the pan, they can touch a little, but do not overcrowd. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then peek under one or two potstickers to see if the bottoms have lightly browned. Adjust your heat if needed.
• When lightly browned, it's time for the steaming. In one hand, have the lid ready. In the other, carefully pour in 1/4 cup of water into the pan. It will splatter, so please be careful. Immediately cover pan with the lid to trap the steam. Let cook for 2 minutes, then open the lid. Continue cooking for another 2 minutes, until all of the water has evaporated. Take a peek under the potsticker. You can add a little more cooking oil if it has trouble browning (but only after all the water has evaporated, otherwise it will splatter.) Shake the pan to loosen the potstickers, swirl in the oil and tilt pan to distribute the oil. When bottoms are nicely browned, plate and serve with dipping sauce.

POTSTICKERS (CHINESE DUMPLINGS)

Steps:

• Place the shrimp in the work bowl of a food processor, and process until the shrimp are finely ground. Set aside in a large bowl. Working in batches, process the ground beef to a fine grind, and set aside with the shrimp. Combine the shrimp and ground beef with ginger, shallot, green onions, napa cabbage, soy sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper, and white sugar, and mix the ingredients until thoroughly combined.
• To fill the pot stickers, place a wrapper on a work surface in front of you, and place a scant teaspoon of filling in the center. With a wet finger, dampen the edges of the wrapper. Fold the dough into a half-moon shape, enclosing the filling, and press and seal to remove extra air and tightly seal the edges together. It's nice to fold several small pleats in the top half of the wrapper for a traditional look before you seal in the filling. Refrigerate the filled wrappers on a parchment-lined baking sheet while you finish filling and sealing the pot stickers.
• Heat the oil in a large nonstick skillet with a lid over medium heat. Place pot stickers into the hot oil, flat sides down, without crowding, and let fry until the bottoms are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Turn the dumplings over, and pour the water over them. Cover the pan with a lid and let the dumplings steam until the water has nearly evaporated and the dumplings have begun to fry in oil again, 5 to 7 minutes. Uncover the skillet, and let the pot stickers cook until all the water is evaporated and the wrapper has shrunk down tightly onto the filling, another 2 to 3 minutes.

CHINESE DUMPLINGS (POTSTICKERS FROM SCRATCH)

Steps:

• Mix the flour with water and knead it for about 20-25 minutes or until the dough gets soft. Separate the dough into two equal portions and roll them into cylinders (about 1 inch in diameter). Cover them with wet towel and set aside. To prepare the skin, cut the dough into 1/4 inches length and use a rolling pin to flatten it until it becomes a round skin about 3 inch in diameter.
• Method:.
• Combine the ground pork, shrimp, chopped napa cabbage and seasonings together. Set aside.
• To make potstickers, place a small spoonful of the filling in the center of the skin. Dab a little water with your finger and circle around the edge of the skin, and then fold and pleat the potsticker accordingly. Repeat the same for the rest. (Please refer to this video or this guide for folding/pleating potstickers.).
• To pan fry the potstickers, coat a frying pan with a little cooking oil and turn to medium heat. Place the dumplings on the frying pan and then turn the heat to high. Pan fry the potstickers until the bottoms turn golden brown and crisp. Add the water and cover the frying pan with its lid immediately. Cook until water has evaporated and turn the heat to low. Cook the potstickers for another 2 minutes or so, dish out and serve hot with Chinese black vinegar.