Daring Cooks - Potstickers/Chinese Dumplings

For June, those brilliant folks at The Daring Kitchen challenged us to make potstickers--specifically the dough. No pre-made dumpling wrappers this time! I'm not sure if I've ever made potstickers before, I may have, but it was a long time ago. I most definitely have not made the dumpling dough before.

This month's challenged was hosted by Jen, from Use Real Butter. Jen has a brilliant blog with so many wonderful recipes and photos. Her blog appears to be down right now--I imagine so many people are linking to it for the Daring Cook's challenge that problems have arisen. Anyway, I'm sure it will be back up and running very shortly. I can't give you the exact link to her dumpling post as I can't get to it, but here is the address of her blog. http://www.userealbutter.com/ Be sure to check-it out.

I don't know all that much about Asian cooking. I can do a basic stir-fry, or fried rice, but I know next to nothing about making Asian-style doughs. I thought that for sure I'd mess-up the dumpling wrappers, though I knew I could come up with a good filling. The dough is actually really easy to make. And, it's friendly--not one of those super delicate pastry doughs that can bring me to tears. This dough can take some heavy handedness.

I had good success making the dough, but rolling it out and forming the dumplings was another story. I didn't know exactly how thin/thick to make the dough as I'd never experimented with it before. Some I made too thin, and many I made too thick. I also had a very hard time filling and sealing the dumplings. It's not really difficult to do, I just need some practice.

I made a really yummy vegan filling. Now, I made much-too-much filling for one recipe of dough. Probably, 3 or 4 times too much, but I knew I would use the filling as a meal over rice later in the week. So, if you want to use this filling for dumplings, you'll need to make more dough, or cut down the filling recipe.

Potsticker Filling:

1 regular sized bag of frozen edamame

3 carrots cut into a small dice

1 small head of napa cabbage, very thinly sliced

2 small cans of water chestnuts, diced

2 boxes of silken tofu, firm

dark sesame oil

canola oil

tamari

sweet chili sauce

Break up the tofu into small pieces. Put into a large baking dish along with all the veggies. Add a bit of canola oil to prevent sticking and mix well. Add tamari and chili sauce to taste--you'll need to add quite a bit to really coat all the tofu and veggies. Add a few drops of dark sesame oil. Mix well. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until the veggies are tender--for me it was about 30 minutes. If there is a lot of extra liquid in your pan after cooking the filling, just drain it off.

(For the sauce, I just mixed some tamari, a little peanut butter, and some sweet chili sauce.)

After filling and steaming the potstickers, they get pan fried. I had no problems with the actual cooking, it was just the prep work that gave me a hard time.

The potstickers were really good. I do need lots of practice with the filling and forming. If you can get over the fact that they are sort of funny looking, my potstickers tasted just like those at my favorite Chinese restaurant. So, I guess I was semi-successful.

Please see some of the amazing dumplings and potstickers from other Daring Cooks. http://thedaringkitchen.com/