Vegetable Potstickers

It sounds simple enough: fill, shape, fry, eat. The reality of making dumplings or potstickers, however, is a little more complicated.

My best friend and I decided on vegetarian potstickers, an easy choice as she does not generally eat seafood or ground meat. Foods that require fillings are normally pretty versatile, though (e.g., dumplings or ravioli). Chicken, beef, pork, shrimp; any of these would be delicious in place of tofu.

What you’ll need:

**Don’t you love her hugging salt and pepper shakers? I may have purchased them for her at MOMA a few years ago. Love them.

Directions
If you’re not used to working with tofu (and I’m not), it can be an intimidating ingredient. While vegetables alone would make for a delicious filling, the tofu added some much needed protein.

Cut the tofu in half horizontally and place between two paper towels. Put your tofu-sandwich on a plate, top with a cutting board or large plate, and place something on top to weigh it down. We used two cans of tomatoes. Let this sit for 20 minutes.

The longest part in making this filling is prepping the tofu and chopping your other ingredients. There’s a lot of chopping. In a large bowl, add the carrots, cabbage, red pepper, scallions, ginger, cilantro, soy sauce, hoisin, sesame oil, egg, salt and pepper.

Once your tofu is ready, cut into a small dice and add to the rest of the filling. Combine and set aside.

And yes, hands are a perfectly acceptable tool for mixing ingredients.

Most dumpling recipes I’ve seen call for round wonton wrappers. The grocery store we went to in Lansdale, PA only had square wrappers, though, so that’s what we used. I’m willing to bet that any of the stores in my hood (Woodside, Queens, a short trip away from Flushing) would have more dumpling wrappers than I have shoes. And that’s saying something.

Shaping dumplings with square wrappers is slightly more challenging than round ones, but hey, we were up for the challenge. Or rather, I was up for the challenge. While I shaped the dumplings, Chaya set off to make us some tasty scallion pancakes. Yum.

Grab a wonton wrapper, place about ½ – 1 teaspoon of the filling in the center, and brush the edges of the wrapper with water. (Again, fingers and hands are acceptable.)

Fold the wrapper diagonally and shape however you’d like. This is a little complicated at first, but I picked up the process pretty quickly. There are plenty of tutorials and posts dedicated to teaching amateurs like myself how to shape dumplings. This one, in particular, was especially helpful. She even makes her own wrappers! I’m definitely trying this (as well as a non-veggie filling) next time.

Side note: I believe what differentiates a “potsticker” from a “dumpling” is that the former gets pan fried. It sticks to the pan. And stick these potstickers did…

There is a right way and a wrong way to pan fry dumplings. Option A, the wrong way, looks a little something like this:

Heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Arrange dumplings in the pan so they make concentric circles. Cook for about three minutes, or until the bottoms turn a dark brown color.

Pour in ½ cup water, cover, and boil until the water evaporates. Steaming will help the rest of the pot stickers to cook.

Once the water is gone, remove the cover, reduce the heat to medium, and let the potstickers crisp up again. This was only supposed to take about 2 minutes, but it took me at least 4 or 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and serve with soy dipping sauce.

…only I couldn’t remove these from the heat. I couldn’t remove them at all. Our first batch of potstickers was compromised because I failed to use a non-stick pan.

While still tasty, the bottoms ended up ripping and the pot stickers looked… pitiful.

Let’s try this again. Option B involves using a non-stick pan, thankyouverymuch. In hindsight this seems like the obvious choice.

Repeat the same method with your second batch of dumplings. Heat your oil, arrange your dumplings, and pan fry for a few minutes.

Add water, steam, and re-crisp the bottoms.

Give the pan a little shake and make sure the potstickers are able to move around. Success! Serve with dipping sauce (recipe below).

Well, almost.

This genius thought it might be a good idea to drain any excess oil on a paper towel before serving.

Don’t do that. Apparently potstickers stick to paper towels. Luckily, we were able to pry them off without causing any damage, but this was an unnecessary and aggravating step in our potsticker process. Hey man, by this point we were starving!

Finally. The time has come to reap the benefits of our long, laborious afternoon.

Victory never tasted so sweet. Or like tofu. And hey, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! We both really enjoyed the flavor; the vegetables were crispy, the tofu added a creaminess, and the dipping sauce was spot on.

For the scallion-ginger-soy dipping sauce:

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and chill until ready to serve.

Yes, we experienced a number of setbacks during our first attempt at homemade dumplings, but I hope to try these again soon. Practice makes perfect, and this girl needs a lot of practice. Besides, the possibilities and flavor combinations are endless!

Fast forward to Thanksgiving leftovers: imagine a potsticker filled with turkey, mashed potatoes, and a gravy dipping sauce on the side. Too far?