ottawa foodies

I have been wondering what potsticker is. I finally looked up the web and then know what it is. This is the pan-fried version of dumpling (鍋貼) in Chinese restaurants or gyoza in Japanese/Korean restaurants. Well. This is my specialty dish. I just made about 90 of them few weeks ago upon my son's request. When I get a chance, I am going to tell you how to do it with instructions and photos so that you can have fun cooking it at home.

Mark, the hot chili oil you bought is great for potsticker! You will find the difference.

Ashley -

I've heard that the reason they are called "Potstickers" in English is because if the bottoms of the dumplings weren't fried before they were steamed, they would "stick" to the bottom of the "pot" :)

Now, you got me looking into it further.

Here is the Wikipedia definition of potstick:
en.wikipedia.org

With the invention of non-stick pan, I don't need the step to steam them any more. I put some oil on the non-stick pan to cook them for 1 minute or until the bottom becomes golden brown color. Then I put half cup of hot boiling water to the pan and cover to cook for 5 minutes (medium-high). Here you get a cruchy potsticker. If you get a bigger size non-stick pan, you can get a load of ~30 potstickers per pan. You dip them in the soy-vinegar dipping sauce (i.e., soya sauce + sesame oil + black vinegar + small amount of sugar) and the hot chili oil I recommend. You got yourself a wonderful meal.

P.S. I like to use minced pork with "bok choi".

Ashley, that's exactly how Terry Hino at Hino's cooks his. I haven't eaten there in a long time but I imagine he still makes them the same way. I make mine with TVP and bok choy since my oldest daughter is vegetarian. I make a soy dipping sauce similar to yours that one daughter likes, and one of ponzu with a little bit of sugar, a pinch of salt and chopped green onions for the other daughter. It's funny, I'm not all that familiar with Japanese food as opposed to Chinese food, but I know them as gyoza too.

Mousseline, pardon my ignorance. What is TVP?

Textured Vegetable Protein: en.wikipedia.org

Basically, it's vegetarian meat. :-)

I made about 4 plates of pork potstickers for dinner tonight. My son ate about 30 of those and kept telling me that they were tasty.

I got the minced pork from Costco, Bok Choy from Farm Boy and the dumpling wrapper (made by Hung Wang Food Inc.) from BestPrice Oriental Market.

I used two types of dipping sauce: light soy sauce mixed with black vinegar and sesame oil. Another type is the hot chilli sauce that I recommended before. Hmmmm. Very yummy.

Our dessert: Smooth and delicate soybean pudding.

If you want to make potstickers yourself at home, I recommend that you buy the dumpling wrappers from Ottawa's Everyday Fresh Food brand (see photo). These dumpling wrappers are very good in term of texture and softness. The ones I used before (from Toronto) was too dry.

I made a lot few weeks ago upon my younger son's order. Every time he has mom's potstickers, he said "Mom, good dinner and can you make more next time".

Dumpling dough is dirt-easy to make. I'll dig out my recipe and post it. I once made perogies for 150 people and it was the first time I'd ever made them. Turned out great! And if you get one of those perogy folders it's even easier (I didn't have one)

how thin is your dumpling dough? i have found the dough for perogies is not as paper thin as wonton skins (which is what i use for my dumplings/pot stickers).

you can buy a wonton/dumpling press in china town for less than a dollar. mine does a half moon with crimped edge. it is very fast to make lots of dumplings! i assume a perogy press is similar and just as quick.

The dough is as thin as you roll it :-)
The half moon thingies are probably one-and-the-same.

This YouTube video may be useful to show you how to use the wrapper (the simplest way):



I don't wrap it like this though.