Pork Pot Stickers

The pot stickers are another dim-sum favorite snack and uses basically same ground pork mixture as Shu-Mei steamed dumplings and steamed Pearl Balls. It is very tedious to make so typical Chinese family do not make them at home, but I have no choice, there are no dim-sum restaurants in our town. I don’t mind even though as a full meal it takes me about half an hour to make them, another 15 minutes to cook them and then just few minutes to eat them all. C’est la vie.

Ingredients

3/4 pound pork butt or equivalent ground pork
1/2 Tbs. fresh ginger, minced

1/2 cup finely chopped Napa or Savoy cabbage leaves

2 tsp. chopped garlic
1 tablespoons water chestnut, finely chopped

3 green onions, minced

2 shitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped fine
1 Tbs. Sake or rice wine
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tbs. cornstarch

Won-ton wrappers

Bowl with water for sealing the dumplings

Directions

Mix all the ingredients except the wrappers, cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to blend the flavours.

1.     Spoon 1 heaping teaspoon of the filling onto a dumpling wrapper. Don’t be tempted to overfill! Dip your finger into the water and “paint” all around the edges of the dumpling skin.

2.     In the middle, pinch the top and bottom together, tightly.

3.     Starting just left of the middle, use your left hand to bring the TOP portion of wrapper to pleat towards the middle. Pinch to secure that pleat. Move down just a bit, and do the pleating again. Repeat once more. You will have 3 pleats on each side, all pleats pointing towards the middle.

4.     Now, it’s time to do the right side. Do the same using only the top portion of wrapper. Pleat towards the middle, or to the left. Repeat 2 more times.

5.     Finish by pinching the pleat all around one more time with your thumb and lower portion of your finger. Remember, any unsealed section will cause the potsticker to leak filling!

 
To cook the potstickers, pour about 2 tablespoons of oil into a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. When hot but not smoking, carefully place the dumplings in frying pan, flat side down, not touching each other. Do not crowd too much or they will not brown. Fry the dumplings in batches for 4 to 5 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned.

Add 1/4 cup (65 ml) of water and immediately cover to start the steaming process. Steam for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the lid and let the rest of the water boil off and re-crisp the bottoms, about 1 minute. Cut open one of the dumplings and make sure the inside meat is cooked. Before starting your next batch, wipe the frying pan clean before adding more cooking oil. Adjust amount of water and steam time for the next batch as needed.

Check this website for clear illustration on folding the potstickers

Ready for cooking. Little bit too crowded for comfort but we were hungry!