The Melting Pot 2.0/The Melting Pot 2.0.iso/food/pasta/potstick.ers

Text File | 1995-09-27 | 10KB | 243 lines

Hunan Dumplings


     Title: POTSTICKERS

2       c  all-purpose flour
1/2     c  water

1/2     lb ground pork
1/2        small Chinese (Napa)
           -cabbage, cored and chopped
1          green onion, coarsely
           -chopped
2          thumb-sized slices fresh
           -ginger, minced
2          water chestnuts, chopped
1       t  salt
1/2     t  sugar
        pn pinch white pepper
1       t  sesame oil

5       T  vegetable oil
1       c  water

           Hot chili oil
           Red rice vinegar
           Soy sauce

PROCEDURE:

In a bowl, combine flour and water, mixing to form a ball.  Remove to a
floured board and knead with your palm for about 3 minutes.  Shape into a
ball, cover with a damp towel, and let stand for about 10 minutes.

Make the filling by combining the Filling ingredients above.  Refrigerate
until ready to use.

To shape and assemble, knead dough for about 3 minutes.  Roll into a
cylinder that is about 1 inch in diameter.  Cut off the ends, then cut into
about 24 pieces, each about 3/4-inch wide.  With the cut side up, press the
dough down with your palm to flatten.  Use a rolling pin to make pancakes
about 2 1/2-3 inches in diameter.  (They get quite thin; that's what you
want.)

Spoon 1 tablespoon of filling into the center of each pancake.  Fold the
 dough over to make a half circle and pleat the edges firmly together.

To pan-fry, heat cast-iron or other heavy-bottom skillet over moderate
heat.  Add 3 Tbsp oil, swirling to coat bottom.  (Watch out, it sizzles
quite a bit.  Don't get burned!)  When oil is hot, place potstickers, seam
side up, in skillet and agitate (shake) for 30 seconds.  Pour in water,
cover, and gently boil over moderate heat for 7 to 8 minutes.  When oil and
water start to sizzle, add remaining 2 Tbsp oil.  Tip skillet to distribute
oil evenly; watch carefully (uncovered) to prevent sticking.  When bottoms
are brown (usually several minutes later), remove from heat and carefully
lift out potstickers with spatula.

To serve, turn potstickers over (dark side up) and arrange on serving
platter.  Combine chili oil, vinegar, and soy sauce in proportions to suit
your taste and offer sauce for dipping.  Alternatively, cut up a hot chili
pepper into red rice vinegar.

NOTES:

You can freeze uncooked potstickers for later use, if you squeeze out the
water from the cabbage during preparation (in a colander or cheesecloth).
Freeze potstickers separately on cookie sheets until firm, then put them in
plastic bags.

When rolling out the pancakes, leave the centers slightly thicker than the
edges.  A thicker center will hold up better during the browning.

If you prefer, steam potstickers for about 12 minutes over boiling water
instead of pan-frying.  (No self-respecting hacker would be caught eating
steamed potstickers, though.)

These are really not hard to make, and come out quite nicely!  Following
the dough recipe above leads to a fairly dry and floury dough; this makes
it hard to roll out and pleat.  Feel free to add a little more water.
There are also now commercially available potsticker presses that take care
of folding and pleating; they're cheap and plastic and work rather well.

The perfect potsticker is uniformly brown with a thick brown area on the
bottom (where it sticks to the pot); it seems that achieving this only
comes with practice.  I tend to fry both sides a bit before adding the
water; this helps.  Beware of too much heat; the bottom will bubble and
crack.  This doesn't taste any different, but doesn't look as nice.

If you don't cook the whole batch at once, store the potstickers so that
they don't touch; the dough tends to stick to itself, so the potstickers
may tear as you remove them.




Subject: Chinese "pot stickers" recipe


Mix together in bowl:
1lb ground pork or chicken
1/4 lb raw shrimp chopped finely
1 box (10oz?) frozen spinach
1-2 grated carrots
3-4 mushrooms diced finely.
1 can (3-5oz) waterchestnuts drained and chopped finely 1/8" cubes
3-4 green onions chopped
1-3 T grated ginger (fresh)
2-3 cloves garlic chopped finely
generous splash of Chinese Rice Wine (or Mirin)
generous splash of soy sauce

Spread three or four cookie sheets with waxed paper.  Set them nearby.
Open your package of potsticker or wonton wrappers.  Begin filling them.  It
seems to work best if one person has their hands all icky from mixing the
stuff and puts small amounts on to a wrapper that someone else is going to
fold.

Use a litle water to seal the edges.  You can crease them in any way you
like.  But the extra dough should be on top, and they should sit flat on the
cookie sheet.  Fill the cookie sheets with them.  Continue filling and
sealing until you either run out of filling or run out of wrappers.  For
this much filling I used two packages of wonton wrappers (with some wrappers
left over).  Make sure they're not touching on the cookie sheet.

To cook:
Put 1/8" of oil in the bottom of a skillet that you have a lid for.  Cast
iron works great for this.  Revereware stainless steel does not.  (Just from
personal experience).  Fill the pan with potstickers as close together as
you can cram them.  Usually you do a circle around the outside then 3-4 more
in the middle.  Turn the heat on.  Cook them on high/medium high heat for 5
minutes or so.  (Don't turn them, just use a spatula to lift the edges to
see if the bottoms are getting crunchy.)  Once they are nice and brown on
the bottom, (with the lid in one hand), quickly pour in 1/2 cup of water and
put the lid on.  Turn the heat down to medium.  They should simmer but not
boil madly.  (If you have an electric stove you may want to either put them
on a different burner turned down to medium, or take them off the heat for a
minute so the pan will cool a little.)  Cook for 20 minutes or until all the
water is absorbed.  (It should take at least 20 minutes.)

Serve with a sauce of (let it sit while they're cooking):
rice vinegar,
rice wine,
soy sauce,
grated ginger

4 of us ate 3 10" skillets full of potstickers.  So, be prepared to cook
lots.

Any extras can be frozen on the cookie sheets, then later transferred to a
ziplock bag (or other container).  To cook the frozen ones follow the exact
same instructions above.  No need to defrost them.





                Potstickers
Mix in a bowl:
1 lb ground chicken
1 box (10oz?)
1/3lb of raw shrimp finely chopped.
mushrooms approx 1 cup finely chopped.  Could also use 2-3 black mushrooms
finely chopped.
1-2 carrots grated
1 sm. can waterchestnuts finely chopped (1/8" cubes)
2-3 green onions sliced thinly
1-2 T grated ginger (use fresh -- this adds *terrific* flavor!)
1-2 T finely minced garlic
2-3 T chinese sweet rice wine or mirin
2-3 T soy sauce
1-3 T rice vinegar
( cabbage, shredded/minced as for cole slaw, optional)
( tofu, optional)

This makes about 70 small potstickers, which is enough for 6 people for
dinner...more or less.

To make this vegetarian, freeze a block of tofu.  Thaw it, squeeze out
all the moisture (just like squeezing a sponge).  This changes the texture
of the tofu.  Finely chop/crumble.  Use more black mushrooms, and maybe some
cooked minced cabbage (I don't particularly like cooked cabbage so I don't
use it in my potsticker recipe, though it can be used).  And of course don't
add the chicken and shrimp.  (This is Johanna's variation)


To assemble:
spoon a small amount of the filling into the middle of the skin.  Wet the
edges with your fingertip.  Seal the edges together (you can be creative
in the form, though they're typically sort of crescent shaped with a
pleated edge).  You don't want to roll them like an egg roll, you just
want the edges all sealed together.  They should have a flat bottom side
that is only a single layer of dough thick.

Lay the filled potstickers on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.  They
shouldn't touch each other at this point.  The pleated/sealed parts should
be on top.

After you've filled all you're going to fill, this recipe uses 1 1/2
packages of wonton wrappers.  (Just freeze the extras.)

Put a 1/8" of vegetable oil in a skillet (either cast iron or non-stick, I
prefer cast iron).  Carefully arrange the potstickers in the pan, crowd
them in tightly, but they should be one level thick.  Put the pan on
medium to medium high heat and cook for 5+ minutes or until the bottoms
are brown and crispy.  Quickly add a scant 1/2 cup of water and put the
lid on.  Turn the heat down to simmer and let them cook until all the
water is absorbed 15-20 minutes.  If the dough looks done after 20 minutes
and there is still some water left, uncover the pan and let the water boil
off.

(Don't skimp on the oil to save calories -- they'll stick to the pan
and the skins will rip.  This happened on my non-stick pan when I
was cooking some leftover ones I'd frozen)

I usually cook two panfuls for 4 people to begin with, and then cook
another panful to finish off our appetites.

Extras (uncooked) can be frozen on the cookie sheet until they're
solid then put them in a container in the freezer.  Cook them exactly
as I wrote above, don't worry about thawing them, it's not necessary.

Extras (cooked) can be saved in the fridge for a couple of days -- my
boyfriend liked them nuked, I liked them cold.


Serve with a dipping sauce of:
soy sauce
rice vinegar
sweet rice wine
ginger
garlic
green onions
a little sugar
a couple drops of sesame oil

Mix these to taste.  About equal parts of the first two, 1/2 of that much
for the 3rd and a little of the others.

(I added a smidge of fish sauce, the kind used in Vietnamese/Thai cooking).