06.14.09
Stuck on You
It’s time for the second Daring Cooks challenge, chosen by Jen of use real butter—potstickers! Now, I’ve made pork potstickers several times before, and I’ve even made my own wrappers, but my folding technique was less than stellar, and I’m always up for an opportunity to practice. When it came right down to brass tacks (read: a few hours ago for dinner), all I had on hand was a huge pork loin and some broccoli, so I improvised on the filling pretty extensively, but I think it worked out alright.
I quickly made the dough, which was very simple but required a few extra tablespoons of water to become supple, and let it rest under a damp towel while I made my filling. For this, I halved the filling recipe and minced up some pork loin in my food processor rather than in the grinder, as it was a pretty small amount of meat. I also steamed some fresh chunks of broccoli, heavy on the stems, quickly chilled it in an ice bath, and minced it up to go in the filling along with some rehydrated shiitakes (popped into the boiling water leftover from the broccoli for a few minutes), garlic, ginger, soy and sesame oil.
My rested dough was just a touch on the sticky side, so I kept bench flour on hand and dusted my rolling pin pretty regularly as I rolled out the wrapper rounds. This part was hard, mostly because Nolan kept trying to storm the kitchen to get into everything and then protested at high volume when his daddy came for the interception. Jen’s photos finally helped me get the hang of the pleats, and I turned out some decent looking potstickers in very little time at all.
I used the pan frying method to cook my potstickers, partly because I don’t have a bamboo steamer basket, and partly because I really like the way the bottoms of the ’stickers crisp up in the skillet. I would have liked to make a creative dipping sauce to go with them, but I was pressed for time and just reached for our Ginger People sauce instead.
These were good, but I like my old potsticker filling recipe better; of course, I didn’t really give this one a fair shake because I had to improvise so many of the ingredients. Still, it was a tasty meal, and helped me get over my slight paranoia about using raw pork in the filling. I also really liked the dough recipe, and finally feel like I am getting the hang of folding them, at least a little. I think I could do it more justice if I cut my fingernails and wasn’t in such a rush to get back to the wailing baby. It made quite a few potstickers, enough for the two of us for dinner with half a dozen leftover in the fridge and a plateful in the freezer—and I could have made lots more with my excess pork filling if I had felt like making up another batch of dough. Thanks so much, Jen, for sharing! And check out all the elegant dumplings at the Daring Cooks Blogroll.
Lisa said,
June 15, 2009 at 1:30 am
I adore the pork loin with broccoli filling idea. It sounds so delicious! That said, your pleating looks great! My nails have been chewed on lately, so I was able to get better pleats than prior tries
Nice job all around!
Audax Artifex said,
June 15, 2009 at 1:43 am
Wonderful effort and your dumplings look delish. Good to hear you liked them. Good to hear that you could do them do fast. Yours and cheers from Audax in Australia,
Megan said,
June 15, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Adding broccoli to the pork was such a creative idea! I wish I had thought of that. My boyfriend is incredibly picky, so I just did pork, scallions, and ginger, but I kept trying to think of something else I could add.. broccoli would have worked nicely!
Jen Yu said,
June 16, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Those look great! Despite all of the things that conspired against you, no one could point to that plate and say that you had any problems with this challenge. Great job.