Potstickers: Pan-fried Chinese Pork Dumplings Recipe, Part 1

Hey guys! I thought I’d share my favorite Chinese potsticker recipe with you. Potstickers, also known as pan-friend dumplings, are my favorite comfort food. I grew up on this stuff!  There’s nothing I like better than a plateful of steaming, perfectly crisp potstickers.  I have so many happy memories of folding dumplings at the kitchen table with my family growing up.  Whenever I make these now, it reminds me of my heritage.  When we were in Taiwan for 3 months earlier this year for Jeff’s work, Jeff was working most days which left me on my own for meals and my favorite thing to do was to pop into a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and get a plate of hot potstickers.  Usually, it would cost just $30 NT ($1 American dollar!) for the meal!!

Jeff and I love hosting dumpling parties these days.  It’s so much fun to prepare all the ingredients, invite a few friends over, wrap dumplings and then cook and eat them together.  Everyone gets involved and its so easy to do!   I like putting guests to work, too!  If you have any leftover dumplings that you didn’t cook, you can lightly toss them in cornstarch and freeze them in a ziploc bag to eat  later.   You can also just boil the dumplings instead of frying them which makes is slightly healthier and easier to cook.  It makes for a quick lunch!  Every family has their own recipe and special way of wrapping them, but I thought I’d share with you mine.  I’m going to write a three part series on my recipe, how to wrap them, and how to pan-fry them, otherwise this post would be way too long.  Part 1 is the recipe for the filling!!

My recipe started off as a recipe that one of my roommates gave me, which I have tweaked over the years.  My roommate P and I used to make these ALL the time on cold Bostonian nights.  There are lots of variations to this recipe that other people have, but this is my basic one.  Sometimes I substitute half the pork with 1/2lb of uncooked, diced up shrimp just to mix it up.  A good way to test your dumpling filling before you wrap all your dumplings is to take a tablespoon of it and microwave it to cook it.  Make any adjustments to your taste.  Some people make their dumpling wrappers from scratch, but I just buy them at the Chinese grocery store.

Pan-fried Pork Dumplings Recipe
Yields about 48 potstickers

Ingredients:

• dumpling wrappers  (can be found in refrigerated section of  Chinese grocery stores, not the same as wonton wrappers)
• 1 cup of cabbage
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1/4 cup scallions
• 1 tb rice wine
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tb soy sauce
• 1/2 tb of sugar

Cut the cabbage into small shreds. Mix with salt and set aside for 5 minutes. Squeeze out the excess water with your hands. Mix the cabbage, pork, scallions, wine, cornstarch, soy sauce and sugar and 1 tsp sesame oil in a large bowl.

Place  about one tablespoon of the pork mixture in the center of the dumpling wrap:

Tomorrow, I will show you how I wrap my dumplings- sorry to leave you hanging here!

Oh and dumplings are best serve with a dipping sauce!  You can actually buy dumpling dipping sauce at the Chinese grocery store (sometimes its called gyoza sauce) or you can make your own.  To make a dipping sauce,  mix 1/4 cup of soy sauce with 1 tsp  sesame oil in a small bowl.

Yum yum!! These pictures make me hungry!

Check back tomorrow to see how I wrap these dumplings!

You might also like: