SueDelicious Cookings: Pan-fried Dumplings

Pan fried dumplings (guotie) also known as "potstickers" in N. America, (鍋貼; guotie), also referred to as "dry-fried dumplings" (煎餃; jianjiao)

Common dumpling meat fillings include pork, beef, chicken, fish, and shrimp which are usually mixed with chopped vegetables. Popular vegetable fillings include cabbage, scallion (spring onions), flowering garlic chives, and Chinese chives. Dumplings are eaten with a soy sauce-based dipping sauce that may include vinegar, garlic, ginger, rice wine, hot sauce, and sesame oil. This time I had the dipping sauce that includes soy sauce, apple cider vinegar and sesame oil. It tastes very good. Another essential feature of good pan-fried dumplings it to have thin and crispy bottom crust.

Ingredients:

1. 300 g ground pork

2. 1-1/2 cups finely chopped flowering garlic chives

3. 3 cups finely chopped Napa cabbage
4. 2 tablespoons minced ginger
5. 1 egg
6. 2 teaspoons Less Sodium Soy Sauce
7. 1 tablespoon wine
8. 1/3 teaspoon salt
9. 2 tablespoons sesame oil
10. 2 tablespoons cornstarch
11. 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
12. 1/2 cup chicken broth (or cold water）
13. 50 Dumpling wrappers (approx.)
14. Flour/water mixture for pan-frying: 1-1/2 cup water + 1-1/2 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Directions:
1. Add 1 teaspoon salt to the chopped Napa Cabbage and mix with hands, let sit for 20 minutes, This will make most of liquid in the vegetable to come out.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix ground pork and ingredients item 4 through item 11 with a wooden spoon. Gradually add in chicken broth, stir energetically after each adding until all chicken broth has been added and mixed well with ground pork. Now, the ground pork will become moisture, soft and sticky.

3. Add Chinese Leek Flower to ground pork. Squeeze off juice from Napa Cabbage and add the cabbage to ground pork. Mix well ground pork, Chinese Leek Flower and Napa Cabbage to make the filling for dumplings.

4. Prepare a cup of water for wrapping dumplings. Place 1 tablespoonful of filling in the middle of a dumpling wrapper, moisten the edge of the wrapper with water, fold wrapper in half, press top and bottom edges together, and leave left and right sides slightly open, gently press down the dumpling while pressing the top edge to make the filling evenly distributed at the bottom. Set aside the wrapped dumplings on a tray dusted with flour or lined with baking paper.

5. In a non-stick skillet, heat up 3 to 5 tablespoons oil (Oil usage is depending on how big the skillet is and how many dumplings are to be cooked in each batch) to medium high. Place dumplings side by side lined up in skillet, lower the heat to medium and fry for one to two minutes (no stirring). Pour the flour/water mixture into the skillet and fill up to 1/3 of the dumpling’s height, cover with lid and lower heat to medium low, cook about 6 to 7 minutes, or until the liquid in the skillet is almost dry out. Open the lid, continue to cook with low heat, cook until the bottom is turning golden brown and liquid is all dry out. Remove dumplings with spatula or just cover with a plate and flip the skillet over to let the fried dumplings drop in the plate (Tip 1).