Potstickers, Part 1

*Disclaimer*:  If you are looking for an exact recipe, you will not find it here.  This is a venue to help you search for other recipes online; combine, modify, and revise recipes to cater to your needs; and provide you with more of the experience of making a particular dish rather than just the ingredients and directions.

Aka jiao zi, gyoza, dumplings.  No matter what they're called, they are delicious.  And surprisingly simple!  (Although time consuming.)  Everyone should try this at least once.  This is also a great project to do with a friend (or more).  My housemate joined me in making these dumplings and it still took us a whole afternoon.

Searching for a recipe:

I like searching for several recipes using different keywords.  For this try searching "potsticker recipe, Chinese/Asian dumpling recipe, jiaozi/gyoza recipe" as well as "Chinese/Asian dumpling wrappers recipe, jiaozi/gyoza wrapper recipe".

So, first the dough:

Most recipes out there that I've found call for a 2-1 ratio of flour to hot/boiling water.  You will want to play around with the proportions depending on the climate, weather, and sometimes just because.  Make sure you have enough water that all the flour incorporates, but not so much water that the dough is distinctly sticky.  I mixed the flour and water with a spoon first and then used my hands to finish it off (I ended up using 1 1/2 cups flour and about 3/4 hot water--this made enough to make 64 dumplings, but still didn't use up all our filling).  Knead it a few times to incorporate everything and then cover (either with a damp cloth or plastic wrap) and let sit for about 30 minutes (or however long).


While the dough rests, you might mix your filling (I did):

There is no "one way" to make the filling.  Nor is there "one recipe".

I made one with pork.









And one vegetarian.

The base for the pork filling was pork and shredded cabbage.

The base for the vegetarian was edamame (slightly chopped), black beans (regular black beans--not specific Asian ones), and cabbage.  I also added an egg as a binder.  Not sure it did much good, but worth a try.

We basically mixed all these together until it looked right.  Then (to both) we added green onions (chopped), cilantro (chopped), chopped garlic, grated ginger, a little cornstarch, and seasoning--sesame oil, sherry, soy sauce, rice vinegar.  Honestly, we eyeballed it all.  The green onions, cilantro, garlic, and ginger were pretty easy.  Sesame oil is usually pretty strong--at least toasted sesame oil is (that's the stuff you find at Asian markets and "Ethnic" sections at grocery stores.  It's nice and dark)--so you only need about 1-2 tsp.  Sherry isn't quite the right taste, so if you're using sherry don't use too much (just a touch more than 1-2 tsp).  You can also use some Asian cooking wine; if so, you might use a little more.  Recipes usually call for about 1-2 Tbsp of soy sauce.  And rice vinegar is pretty mild as vinegars go, so you can use about the same amount as the soy sauce.

Here's a trick to test taste (obviously you don't want to eat raw meat or eggs).  Just take a Tbsp or less and fry it up in a pan.


Now, time to roll out the wrappers:

I found some good tips for rolling out dumpling wrappers from the blog Asian Dumpling Tips (not an affiliate of The Occasional, Accidental "Chef").  The author suggest using a tortilla press to start the flattening process and also highly recommends using an Asian rolling pin (about 3/4 inch in diameter--much thinner than the Western rolling pin).  This blog even has a post about how to make your own Asian rolling pins!!  Since we had neither, we had to improvise, but more on that later.

Remember that I said that the amount of dough I made was enough for 64 dumplings.  To be that precise, divide your dough in half; divide each of those into half (you have fourths now).  If you made a smaller batch of dough you'll probably want to work with fourths.  With my amount of dough, we divided it into eighths (dividing each fourth into half).

Now, take each portion and roll it into a snake.  Since you're going to divide this into equal portions, it doesn't really matter how thick or thin you roll out your dough snake.  But, to aid in the flattening, don't roll it out to any thinner than your thumb.  (Also, if you roll it too thin, it will be really, really long. =)  Divide your dough snake into eighths by dividing it in half, then each half in half again, then all the pieces in half once more.  However, you might want to make your end pieces a little longer to make up for the fact that the ends taper.  Take each lump of dough, coat with flour as needed to keep from being sticky, and flatten it once with your palm.  It'll look a little like the picture below.

Now it's time to flatten some more =).  This is where the tortilla press comes in.  See the recommended blog above for more tips and information.  For our purposes, we used a cast iron pan, but any heavy, flat-bottomed (clean) object will do--like a pan, or even a baking dish.

Just flatten them out, and lightly coat them with cornstarch.  Cornstarch acts like flour to keep the dough from sticking, but won't dry it out like flour (not sure how that works, but that's what I've read).

<-- They should look something like this.


My housemate asked me if maybe this step could be skipped, but I think it does make working with the rolling pin easier.







Here is where the Asian rolling pins come into play.  Visit Asian Dumpling Tips for directions on how to make and use Asian rolling pins.  The basic idea is that you want to roll out the dough rounds both so that they are bigger and so that the edges are thinner than the middle (sort of like a bulls eye).

Honestly, just roll them out thinner.

I think we rolled ours out a little too thin (at least for my taste).  I like having a little thickness and bite to my dumpling wrappers.

Also, our centers did not end up being any thicker than the edges.







Now it's time to (w)rap (nn-ts kk-ts nn-ts kk-ts ;):

There is an amazing pictorial guide on how to wrap dumplings at Use Real Butter (also not an affiliate).  I'll just give you the guidelines here and you should definitely visit this site for more details.

First, get a small bowl or container of water.  You will need this to seal the dumpling (the dry cornstarch does a great job of keeping the wrapper from sticking to each other, but also to itself).  Put some filling in the middle of a wrapper.  After wrapping a few you will start getting a feel for how much filling you need.  I think it will hover right around a Tbsp.  Next, wet the outside of half of the wrapper.  Fold the whole thing in half but only seal the middle.  Then just pleat from the middle to one corner and then from the middle to the other corner.  Seriously, go visit the site and this will all make sense.

And there you have a wrapped dumpling!

Stay tune for Part 2 where I will talk about how to cook dumplings.

If you are not cooking them right away, you have a few options.  If you know you will be cooking them soon (say, within the next week) you can store them in the refrigerator.  I just left them on the plate and covered them with plastic wrap.  Make sure that they aren't too crowded because they will start sticking to one another as well as to the plate.  Also, if you have a moist filling (like my vegetarian filling) the moisture will also soften the dough make it more prone to stick.  None of my dumplings broke drastically; they just need a light touch when you transfer them from plate to pan.

If you plan to store them for longer, freeze them!  You will want to freeze them individually--put them on a non-stick, freezer-safe surface, maybe a plate lined with foil/wax paper/parchment paper/what have you and place in freezer until frozen.  Once they are frozen, you can transfer them to an airtight, freezer-safe container (like a plastic zip top bag).  You can cook them straight from the freezer, making freezing a convenient option.

And now you have homemade dumplings full of ingredients that you chose yourself.  And you have bragging rights having made your own dumplings.  Bring these to your next potluck and impress your friends!