Disappearing Potstickers

When we decided to start this blog, we didn’t have much of a plan.  Both of us are “by the seat of our pants” when it comes to blogging, posting whatever we wanted, when we wanted.  In addition, we’ve never worked on a project together.  Sure, we’ve done stuff together.  We’ve run half-marathons together.  We work out together.  We planned a wedding together, bought a house together.  But those things aren’t really projects, most of them were more like me saying to him, “hey, here’s a couple lists of the things I want, choose from my previously approved options.”

On the other hand, this is a collaborative effort for us.  We’re planning out what sort of culinary adventures we’re going to do. We’re learning how to cooperate in our kitchen, which has really, really limited working space.  Obscenely limited, if we’re honest honest.  Cooking together, it seems, is less “interpretive dance of the joy of cooking” more like “two objects can not occupy the same space”.  We’re working on making it work, and last night actually turned out pretty well, with neither of us yelling at sternly talking to the other.

We spent the evening making a feast of potstickers and General Tso’s cauliflower.  Let me be the first to say that both were fantastic.  We’ve made potstickers in the past, and they’ve always been pretty tasty.  Home cooked will outshine something pulled out of the freezer, and almost always be better than what you would get at one of those restaurants that looks like a second-hand store vomited on its walls.  The main problem we’ve had is stuffing the wrappers, mostly because it is so time-consuming.

Potstickers:  Some Assembly Required

Our recipe was based on the one found over at Damned Delicious, and while we changed some things, we left the basics intact.  The Beard started with some ground pork and added in a generous helping of garlic.  I know that the original recipe says to use two cloves of garlic, and we’ve got 1 tbsp of it in this recipe, but truthfully, it was a pretty generous tablespoon.  We eliminated the cabbage because neither of us likes it enough to waste most of the head of cabbage after using it in this recipe.  While Beard seasoned, I set to work with prepping the onions and mushrooms.  The Beard was leery of adding the mushrooms, but I figured that if he doesn’t notice them in cream of mushroom soup, he wasn’t going to notice them in these, as long as I diced them small enough.

As it happens, this is the same method my mother employed to get me to eat the celery and onions in her stuffing recipe.

Combine the pork, mushroom, onion, hoisin sauce, ginger, sesame oil, chili sauce, and white pepper in a mixing bowl.  Get your hands in there and mix it well.  It’s messy, and probably cold, but it’s the price we pay for tasty food, right?  Right.

Once you’ve mixed everything, the easy part is over and it’s time for the monotonous part of the recipe, filling the wrappers.  We used a package of square wonton wrappers that the local grocery store sells, but you can use whatever shape you would like, or get real fancy and make your own. Ours held just over a teaspoon of filling in each wrapper, which the Beard was happy enough to scoop and prep while I folded things up.

It’s helpful to have a sort of assembly line thing going on with one person filling and one person folding things up.  When we planned things out this week, we purchased some wonton/empanada molds, with the hope that they would speed up the process and we’d make these more often.

Spoiler alert:  they were an epic fail.

Keep a little bowl of water in your folding area.  Scoop the filling on the wrapper, moisten your finger in the water and wet the edges of the wrapper, then fold them closed and pinch the sides to seal them up.  There are many ways to fold these up, and you can look online and use whatever way is easiest for you, or make up your own way.  I tried in vain to fold them and pleat them and make them look all food magazine worthy, but this was the easiest method for me.

Potstickers, ala the Tart! #cookingadventures #cookingwithchicky #rifoodie #foodie #alltartedupfood #potstickers #pork #asianfood

A post shared by All Tarted Up (@alltartedupfood) on Apr 21, 2018 at 1:56pm PDT

Place the folded dumplings on a sheet pan or anything big enough to hold the finished ones while you’re working on their tasty brethren.  If you’re making a large batch or not cooking them up right away, cover the finished ones with a wet paper towel to keep them from drying out.

So you want to cook potstickers.

To cook them, heat 1-2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat; make sure to use one that you can cover because these will splatter and you’re going to both browning and steaming the potstickers.  When the oil is good and hot, place a batch of the dumplings into the oil, being careful not to overcrowd them in the pan.  Cover the pan, turn the heat down to medium, and let them get brown on the bottom, about 3-5 minutes.  The timing is slightly different every time we make these, so it might be good to make your first batch a small one while you get the timing down right.  You want them brown and on the crispy side, but not burnt and inedible.

After they’ve browned up, pour about 1/4 cup of water into the pan and cover it again.  Keep the lid on and steam the potstickers for another  2-3 minutes, until cooked through.  If you find that there’s too much water left in the pan after you steam them, turn the heat up a bit to evaporate the water before you cook the next batch.  Remove them from the pan, adding another tablespoon of oil if things are starting to stick – we found we could do two batches before needing to add more oil.

Serve them immediately for best flavor, plain or dip them in your favorite sauces.  We made ended up finishing with about 30-ish potstickers.  There were no leftovers.

Print

Potstickers a la All Tarted Up

Course Appetizer, Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Keyword dumpling, pork, potsticker

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 1.25 lb ground pork
• 1 portobello mushroom finely chopped
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 2 green onions sliced thin
• 1 tbsp hoisin sauce
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsps sesame oil
• 1 tsp chili sauce we like sriracha, but use what you'd like, and how much you can handle!
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1 pack wonton wrappers
• vegetable oil as needed

Instructions

1. Combine all pork, mushroom, garlic, onion, hoisin sauce, ginger, sesame oil, chili sauce, and white pepper in a large bowl.  Get your hands in there and mix it.  Mix it real good.

   

2. Spoon about 1 heaping tsp of filling onto a wrapper.  Wet your finger with water and moisten the edges of the wrapper and fold it in half to close it, pinching and folding the edges closed with whatever method works best for you and the wrapper that you're using.  Repeat until you've run out of meat.

   

3. Heat 1 tbsp of the vegetable oil in a frying pan, heating on med-high heat.  Once the oil is hot, lower the heat to medium and place a batch of dumplings into the hot oil, taking care not to overcrowd them too much.  Cover the pan and let them cook for 3-5 minutes, depending on how full you stuffed them.  Check them at 3 minutes to make sure they're not burning too much, you want them brown and crispy, but still edible.

   

4. Add about 1/4 cup of water to the hot pan and cover things once more to steam the dumplings for another 2-3 minutes.  Remove lid and increase to high heat if needed to evaporate any water.

5. Repeat for each batch of dumplings, and serve with your choice of dipping sauce.

   

Recipe Notes

When we made this, we got about 30-ish dumplings.  Your mileage may vary depending on the size and shape of your wrappers and how much you can stuff into them.

The Tart

The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things.  She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.