Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Poet's Potstickers

A poet gave me his potsticker recipe after I heard him tell Arthur Sze that Neil's recipe is often called, "better than my grandmother's" by his various friends. And after I told him how much I love potstickers. I had not gotten the recipe from my dad for his own potstickers which he made once. We all sat at the round white breakfast table on Meadow Road and he floured the wrappers. I'm pretty sure his filling was chives, Chinese spinach, pork, egg, garlic and soy sauce. But that is something we can never have again. The recipe below, though, is really really good.

Into a food processor with a regular blade put:

1 pound ground pork (we used 1/2 pound fatty ground pork plus two lean chops because we were in the Real Asian Grocery where ground pork is half fat, so don't feel obliged about the pork being lean).
2t garlic powder
1/4 cup plain flour
an egg+ one yolk (save the white for the assembly of the potstickers)
1/4 pound stir fried shrimp*
1 T soy sauce (less if you fear salt)
2 t sesame oil
1 t ketchup
1 t rooster sauce
1 t Better than Bouillon Organic Chicken Base (or powdered cube is fine)
small bundle of fresh chives
quarter cup of water, more if it looks like it needs it
generous crackings of white and black pepper: (We happened to have a grinder of Frontier organic smoked peppercorn blend)
dash of anise powder (optional)
one 16 oz. pack dumpling skins (Wonton Specialist, 317-325 Ten Eyck Street, Brooklyn NY 11206, (718) 418-2911).

*the shrimp are supposed to be pan fried in sesame and peanut oil, garlic chili paste (Lan Chi brand Garlic Chili Paste is what Dad used) and a little ketchup but this didn't happen, so I put the condiments in separately for taste and it was good. I used rooster sauce, which was tasty, but there's a very particular Chinese garlic chili paste you should use).

Blend all this until the dumpling mix is fluffy.

Watch a youtube about how to make potstickers. Use the egg white mixed hard with chopsticks and a teaspoon of water.



Get a non-stick pan or cast iron pot with a tight fitting lid very hot with a generous amount of oil.

Fry dumplings on both sides. Add 1/2 to a cup water and keeping the heat high clamp on lid and let them steam until most of the water is gone. I personally want to pan fry future batches them put them in a bamboo steamer to get the wrappers soft.



Serve with dipping sauce of: soy, vinegar, sesame oil, some chopped chive. (Juliette's roommates had made a more Southeast Asian dipping sauce of lime juice and fish sauce which was also good: then she dumped it in with the Chinese sauce and that DID work).



Juliette made Korean pancakes too and watched an Ozu movie while I watched half of it and dozed. Then we talked until 2:15AM while the rabbits ran under the bed and the cats asked for pats. Girls with some fat luck.

This whole thing makes me think back on my dad eating fermented tofu out of a jar. If a meal was kind of bland or involved a lot of rice (especially a bed of rice with sardines on it), my dad would say, "Get me the bean curd" which he pronounced kind of like "been kirk". It is basically the worst thing I ever ate. I might be more okay with it now that my taste buds have matured, but then again, do an image google of "fermented tofu": on the first page there are three photos of people (two asians, one white guy) looking like they are going to hurl. Ah. You should try it.