Potstickers, & a Video on How To Fold Them

On the 10 year anniversary of this little blog, we have come full circle. Here I am again, posting a recipe for potstickers - my first ever post was about potstickers. Maybe it means that in fact in 10 years I've gone absolutely nowhere with this. The pictures are better though, and my pleats are pretty great so if that's all the progress I've made then I'll take it.

Potstickers are a big part of my life. My freezer always has a bag, and I am forever experimenting with new flavours. We don't veer too far away from pork, because mmm pork, and my favourite so far have been the soup dumplings, from 2016. 

I love wontons equally, as is evidenced by a snapshot look at my instagram account and I strongly believe that there isn't a hangover that can't be at least slightly quelled by these tiny parcels of joy.  The intimidating part is the folding, and I would recommend starting with shop-bought wrappers for quick and easy while you get those fiddly pleats sorted out. 

Here's a video of me showing you how to fold them and cook them (don't worry, my face isn't in it). For this recipe, I partnered with Chinatown London, and you can try these for yourself, if you don't want to make them, in restaurants all over Chinatown. My favourite places are Jen Cafe and Dumplings Legend.  

Once you get that down, get going on rolling your own wrappers. They are worth it. Here's a recipe that makes a bunch; it's best to make too many and freeze them on a floured plate as you can easily cook them from frozen. 

TIPS! With pre-made wrappers:

Have a piece of kitchen roll or a clean j-cloth to hand, that is damp. This is so you can press the wrapper face down onto it before you stuff it, to help stick the pleats. 

Make sure you squeeze the pleats shut - dampen your finger when doing so if they're being a bit dry. 

This is a pretty standard base recipe; from here you can start adding things. Sometimes I take out spring onions and add finely minced Chinese chives. In the springtime, I add blanched, minced wild garlic. I really like diced water chestnut too for some secret crunch, and I like experimenting with flavours like celery, or fennel seed. Tofu fillings also work well, though be sure to squeeze out moisture and st

POTSTICKERS

60gr fatty minced pork

4 napa cabbage leaves, finely chopped

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp oyster sauce

5cm piece of ginger, grated and soaked in 1 tbsp water

3 shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated

1 tbsp light soy

½ tbsp sugar

3 spring onions, finely chopped

1 packet of dumpling wrappers (white, round)

1 tbsp oil

Water, to hand

DIPPING SAUCE:

Soy sauce

Chilli oil

Black vinegar

Slivered ginger

Pinch of sugar

Salt the cabbage and set in a sieve over the sink while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Mix the pork in one direction with the oyster sauce, sugar, light soy, spring onions. Squeeze the ginger in the water and add the water only. Mix well until formed into a paste. Rinse the cabbage, squeeze all the moisture out well, and add to the pork mixture. 

Set out a clean dampened j-cloth or damp couple of pieces of kitchen roll. Press the dumpling wrapper into the moist, then add a tsp filling. Pleat, set aside to cook. To cook, heat up 1 tbsp cooking oil in a non-stick pan, then place the dumplings flat bottom side down in the oil. Fry for 3 minutes, add 50ml water and the lid, and steam for 2 minutes. Remove the lid and evaporate the water on a medium heat, making sure the bottoms aren’t burning.

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Combine sauce ingredients to dip the dumplings in.

(Disclosure: This is a paid partnership for me to develop the recipe and cook it in the video. All views and words are my own)

Spinach & Chard Manti - Turkish Dumplings

I LOVE DUMPLINGS. I was helping a friend out with a pescatarian supperclub recently, and in doing so we made manti - a Turkish dumpling that's also found in Russia and Central Asia. The origins of the dumplings are uncertain, though it is believed that the recipe was carried from Central Asia through the Silk Road to Anatolia and China by Turkic peoples (thanks Wikipedia!). Essentially, they're dumplings made with an egg-enriched wheat dough, filled with a spiced meat mixture, and often served with yoghurt.

I tested the recipe first because I LOVE DUMPLINGS but also dumplings can be notoriously difficult to fold, and vegetarian fillings can sometimes be a touch on the bland side. We made this up completely as there weren't many of its vegetarian kind to be found on the internet and I'm not sure how traditional they are given our tweaks, but it has warming spices like cinnamon in them, mixed with the zest of lemon, the zip of parsley and a robust minerality of spinach and chard. Balanced on garlic yogurt, drizzled with chilli oil and dusted with sumac, these dumplings were swept off their plates hungrily. They're not too much of a pain to make, either, as long as you have a bit of patience.

The dough and garlic yoghurt is largely taken from this recipe, though we had a couple of tweaks - I'm not a massive fan of the flavour of dried mint, so I reduced it down. You need to roll the dough as thinly as you can, using a long, thin rolling pin and work to small parcels so that they're light and delicate rather than huge and stodgy. These are tips I picked up from Helen, so hat tip to her as well.

The folding of the dumplings is wonderfully simple - you take opposite corners and you pinch together to form a cross shape. This one was one of my first; you'll want to make them a little smaller. This recipe makes many many manti, but they're freezable and because they're baked first, they keep in the fridge a while. I have no idea why this is baked and then boiled, while most recipes straight-up boil but the baking means they do last longer - if you're going to eat them right away, you can go straight for the boil and miss out the baking stage. 

Spinach & Chard Manti

Serves LOADS

DOUGH:
300gr plain flour
A pinch of salt 
1 egg, beaten with 100ml water
2 tbsp olive oil

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, then add the egg and the oil and bring together to form the dough. Knead for 6 minutes, until you get a smooth dough, and then cling film and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make the filling. 

FILLING:
A bunch of spinach
A bunch of chard, leaves and stalks separated 
A bunch of flat leaf parsley
20 walnut halves
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 large pinches of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp Palestinian za'tar (available at the Turkish Food Centre) 
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp breadcrumbs

Blanch the spinach, refresh in iced water. Blanch the chard by adding the stalks 40 seconds before the leaves, as they take longer to cook. Refresh in iced water. Drain and squeeze the moisture out of both vegetables thoroughly, and place in a food processor. Add the walnuts, parsley, garlic, cinnamon, za'tar, lemon zest and olive oil and pulse until well pulsed. If it's looking too wet add the breadcrumbs - it should hold together well but not be sloppy. 

GARLIC YOGHURT: 
3 cloves of garlic, blanched in boiling water for 1 minute 
500ml yoghurt, at least 10% fat
1/2 tsp salt

Mince the garlic well with the salt and add to the yoghurt. Stir well. 

SPICED OIL: 
150ml olive oil
1 tsp pul biber (chilli flakes you can buy in the Turkish Food Centre) 
1 tsp urfa chilli flakes (again, buy in the Turkish Food Centre) - these are slightly darker, and milder and smokier than pul biber. You can use just pul biber if you wish.
1 tbsp hot pepper paste (biber sulcasi) - you can sub in half tomato paste half harissa paste if you like
1 tbsp sumac
1 tsp dried mint (kuru nane)

Heat the oil up in a small saucepan and add the hot pepper paste. Fry until fragrant, around 2 minutes, on a medium heat and then add the chilli, sumac and mint flakes. Simmer for around 3 or 4 minutes, then take off the heat. 

GARNISH: 
1 tbsp sumac
Chopped flat-leaf parsley

Line up a baking sheet or tray with greaseproof paper. Split the dough into 3, and re-wrap the other two. 

Working with one ball at a time, roll out as thinly as you can and then cut squares out of it - working to around an inch size. Maybe start slightly bigger until you have the hang of it. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough as it's slightly easier. 

Add a teaspoon or less of filling to the centre of each square and bring the opposing ends up to join into a cross shape. Seal well and place on the baking tray. Repeat until the dough or the filling is gone or you're bored shitless. 

Preheat the over to 180 degrees and bake for 10 minutes, until slightly golden. Wait for them to cool if you're going to saving them for later - they last about 3 days in the fridge, or can be frozen - otherwise then simmer them in water for 8 minutes, before draining. 

To serve, add a generous amount of yoghurt to each dish. Place the manti on top of the yoghurt and drizzle with the spiced oil. Garnish with a hefty pinch of sumac and a sprinkling of parsley.  

Manhattan In a Weekend

My trips to New York are becoming more and more audacious; everyone I told that I was going just for a weekend responded with incredulity. It's a touch longer than a weekend; we went over the bank holiday, leaving work at 1pm on the Friday, to arrive back in London on Monday evening. Obviously it isn't enough time in My Spiritual Home, but it would have to do.

Our last odyssey had us there at the beginning of January 2015, a frigid time filled with freezing winds, snow and a lot of woollens. This time, it couldn't have been more opposite, the balmy weather hitting the early 30s Celcius. Due to our shortened timescales, we decided to stay at Hotel Chandler, a lovely little hotel right in the middle of K-Town, to allow us good access to Newark Airport - definitely, definitely fly to Newark over JFK. It is dreamy, in comparison.

We dumped our bags and headed straight to Gramercy Tavern, which has been on my list for years. We slung a bucketful of martini down our necks, and were taken aback by the deliciousness of the cornbread with lamb sausage and green tomato. It's not the Deep South cornbread I thought it was going to be; the crisp flatbread was embedded with corn, topped with minced lamb patties, and the green tomatoes were apple-like in crisp sweetness. For days afterwards we still debated if this was the best thing we ate.

A tomato salad with stone fruits and basil was light and summery, refreshing and served to us in individual bowls, divided so we didn't have to fight, as they knew we were sharing. That is service. I don't think I really knew good (casual) service until going to New York.

Grilled corn, shrimp and dumplings in miso was richly flavoured, bursting with sweetness and seafood. We both zoned in on this one the minute we opened our menus, being the Asian-lovers we are, and it was everything I wanted out of a bowl.

Roasted tomatoes, macaroni and cheddar cheese was comforting goodness, without being too rich and sleep-inducing. We had just come off a nearly 8 hour flight and we were wary of cutting our evening short with a carb-hit to end all evenings, but we needn't have worried. Just the right portion size for two, the extra crunch of the breadcrumbs on top ensured each mouthful kept our attention till the end. We forewent dessert, and I regret not trying the wild blueberry pie, but cocktail bars required our attention. Of all the meals of the weekend, it wasn't the cheapest, at $170 total but it was worth each one of our hard-earned Brexit-fucked pennies. I can't talk about the exchange rate right now, it hurts too much.

The next day we bounded out of bed to meet a dear friend at Jack's Wife Freda, a restaurant that has branches in SoHo and the West Village. The latter is larger, so we only had a short wait for a table as my hangover kicked in with ferocity and I was only able to muster the orange blossom and honey pancakes. The green shakshuka and the Madame Freda, made with duck prosciutto were well received by my friends, though a little more care on the egg cooking may have been necessary to be rid of that dreaded egg white flob.

Root & Bone was the venue for lunch, where we met up with Rej of Gastro Geek fame, and reminisce about the good old days of food blogging in London. Well, I imagine we would have done more of that if we weren't so bewitched by her utterly gorgeous two little boys who ran us ragged with their cheekiness and boundless energy. Parenting is hard. Anyway, we bimbled around for a while until our table was ready and dang (to use a localism?) that place was packed, but you can book.

The waitresses were harried, but efficient and soon enough, a half bucket of the crispest fried chicken arrived, along with a watermelon salad dressed with jalapeno buttermilk. Around us, people were having fried chicken with waffles and eggs benedict, brunching hard and enjoying the shaded outdoor seating.

We stopped for a drink at The Frying Pan, a big boat off Chelsea, along with a lot of New York's younger revellers (top picture). I'll freely admit I felt a little old there, but the sun was shining and it's nice being on water. We plotted our course through the afternoon and decided to stop off at Momofuku Nishi in time for Happy Hour (5:30pm). When The Impossible Burger was on the menu, we had to try it.

Made entirely from plants and plant-based products, it's meant to mimic the flavour of a hamburger. It does, and I think it's largely down to the condiments. The burger comes with a McDonald's-esque burger sauce, strong in pickle flavour, and the lettuce, tomato and slappy cheese go along to help that. The bun is squishy and sweet, and there is a hint of a meaty char. It's a decent attempt and I think if I were a vegetarian I might enjoy it more, but it definitely doesn't have the same mouthfeel or satisfaction of a normal cheeseburger.

I had to convince my friend to order the 'butter noodles - chickpea hozon, black pepper' - "but Lizzie, we were only coming for a snack!". Well, if it isn't the best bloody noodle dish I've had in a while. It's like cacio e pepe, except somehow richer in flavour, and lighter in feeling. It had intense savouriness from the hozon - a term invented by chef / owner Chang for making miso out of non-traditional ingredients (soybeans being the most common). The noodles were cooked to almost too al dente, but only almost. I know I'm a David Chang fan anyway, but seriously. (Also, for $19, I'd hope so too.)

We ate in Korea Town more often than we'd intended to, but that's no bad thing. After going to my friend's incredibly beautiful and fun wedding, we found ourselves hammered and hungry at 4am. K-Town was still up an at it, and we wobbled through the doorway of BCD Tofu House down to the basement for some late-night booze-soaker-upper-supper. It. Was. Rammed. At 4am, packed to the rafters. We were agog; truly, it is the city that never sleeps. They brought us banchan (Korean pickles) of kimchi, marinated beansprouts, pak choi, a strange mayonnaise-y potato salad, a freshly fried salted fish and various other bits before we'd even ordered. I think I had a soondoobu jjigae (spicy seafood and tofu stew) and I'm pretty sure my friend had the pork bulgogi but what I do know is we left stuffed and happy, $30 all told (though we were all boozed out by then, so that's just food). I love you, New York.

On our last night too, we went to Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong (say that after a few) for Korean barbecue; the place is open till 6am EVERY NIGHT. Two floors, and packed at 10pm on a Sunday night. Mental. We feasted on their beef combo of bulgogi, prime rib and other cuts, while omelette poofed and cooked on the right and corn cooked down with gooey cheese on the left. A vast array of pickles and lettuce and sauces accompanied the meal and they also brought us a fiery kimchi stew. A teeth-achingly sweet carafe of yuzu sochu cocktail made us giddy. I was in heaven.

I wanted to try some ramen in New York, so we headed to Ivan Ramen's Slurp Shop in Hell's Kitchen which is housed in a pretty helpful food court. It's a bit Westfield in feeling but as it has tacos, tapas and decent coffee, it would suit the most diverse of cravings amongst a group. The breakfast ramen, with cheesy dashi, ham and omelette (top) was pretty mega; too much for me to handle, but my friend went in with gusto. I opted for the Shio ramen with extra toppings of enoki mushrooms (weirdly plonked on raw), a soft egg and toasted nori. It was a decent bowl of noodles, but we do it better in London. Spicy miso-buttered corn on a stick was a nice touch, though the cabbage salad was uninspiring. It is not the crisp, crunchy sweetness of our very own Bone Daddies.

We walked 17 kilometres around New York on both days, enjoying the sunshine and avoiding the subway - as well as working up our appetites for more food. Harry & Ida's Meat Supply Co. was an oasis of calm, shaded and bedecked in wood, reminiscent of a film set though I'm not sure which. We'd squeezed in some cheeky dumplings from Tasty Dumpling (I wouldn't bother again; they were roughly hewn, and overly doughy) as well as crammed in some tofu and noodles from Xi'an Famous Foods, a must if ever I'm in the city - so this sandwich wasn't one I was hugely enthused about. I was positively lethargic. "Can we get Ida's?" I bleated. Ida's is the 'light' version of the pastrami sandwich. (Something something female stereotypes huff huff something). 

It is wonderful. The bread is light - no roof of the mouth scrapings here - and spongy, and the inside is smeared with wholegrain mustard that has a strong hint of the American about it (you know the type, French's). The meat is warm and fatty - and actually the American 'pastrami' is our salt beef - and full of fatty, juicy flavour. The cucumber pickles are crisp and sweet, though we plucked out some of the over-generous fronds of dill. If I lived in New York I'd buy that pastrami by the pound, which they sell there in bulk, along with smoked eel, bluefish salad, smoked chicken etc. 

We waddled off to get an ice cream at The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, and went for the Salty Pimp; soft serve vanilla with salted caramel, dipped in chocolate. Holygod. 

Diet time. 

Potsticker Soup Dumplings

I long for the day London gets a Din Tai Fung. I'm still convinced we still might, because bloody everywhere else has; Dubai, LA, Hong Kong, Macau, Sydney, Melbourne - even Seattle has TWO branches! Come on! Anyway, if you haven't been to Din Tai Fung, you must; they make some really good siu long bao (soup dumplings). Delicate steamed little dumplings of different flavours, filled with soup to pop in your mouth. It's a real art, getting the skins thin enough so they're not doughy, but robust enough to hold the delicious broth and filling. I haven't found anywhere in London that matches their quality, though I haven't attempted the higher end Park Chinois-type places, admittedly. 

What's a girl to do when the craving hits? Make my own. 

I won't lie. It's not a quick process, and I knew that on the undertaking. The reason for this is that you need to make a stock out of chicken bones and pigs trotters so that it heavily gelatinises, and you can then whip it into the dumpling filling. Have you ever wondered how they get that soup in the dumplings? This is it; when the dumplings are cooking, the meat jelly melts into the soup. Phwoar. Meat jelly. So it's really a 2 day affair where you need to make the stock, solidify it, and then the graft happens. 

I also decided to add the complication of making my own wrappers. This was so that they would be pliable enough for me to pleat them into buns. My bun-pleating went all sorts of horribly wrong - @mayluuluu I am not - so I stuck to what I knew, and decided to turn them into potsticker soup dumplings instead. 

It worked damn well, but you definitely need a really good non-stick pan for this, lest anything sticks and you burst your precious dumplings and thus rid them of their juice. Disaster. If all goes to plan, you should be rewarded with these beauties, ready to be dressed with soy sauce, a touch of vinegar and chilli oil. Crunchy bottomed, steamed top and bulging with soup. Pretty exciting stuff. 

Potsticker Soup Dumplings

Makes around 30

For the broth, and the day before: 

1 pig trotter

400gr chicken wings

3 slices of ginger, lightly bashed

The whites of 4 spring onions, chopped roughly

A few white peppercorns

Salt

Put the pigs trotter and wings in a large saucepan and cover with water. Add a hefty pinch or three of salt, and bring the water to the boil. Boil for 5 minutes and discard the water. Now clean everything really thoroughly under cold running water; this helps keep the broth scum-free. 

Put everything back into the pan, cover again with water, add the ginger, spring onion and peppercorns, and simmer on a low heat with the lid on for at least 3 hours. You should have at least a litre of broth by the end of this, as you're keeping the lid on. Remove from the heat, leave to cool, and fish out the trotter and chicken wings. Strain through a sieve into a large bowl, then line the sieve with muslin or kitchen towels and strain again. Then simmer gently for half an hour without the lid to reduce down by about a third. Remove, and taste - you'll need to add around a teaspoon of salt at this stage, but add it incrementally and keep tasting, in case it gets too salty. My neighbour's cat very much enjoyed the chicken wing meat stripped from the bones. Waste not want not. 

Place the broth in the fridge overnight. 

For the filling:

300gr fatty minced pork

2 inches of ginger, grated into a bowl, with 1tbsp water in it

The greens of 4 spring onions, minced

A large pinch of white pepper

1 tbsp oyster sauce 

2 tsp light soy

A large pinch of salt

A few leaves of Napa cabbage

Cooking oil

Dipping sauce & garnish: 

Slivered ginger

1 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp Chinese black vinegar

1 tsp chilli oi

Snipped chives

In a large bowl, add the pork, salt, oyster sauce, light soy, white pepper and spring onions. Squeeze the ginger pulp and add the ginger water to the pork via a sieve. Mix the pork in one direction continuously with chopsticks until it starts to become a sticky lump. You'll need to do this for at least a few minutes. 

Take the meat jelly out of the fridge, and you'll only need half. You can freeze the other half. Chop into cubes, and mix again into the pork, stirring one direction continuously, and eventually whipping the pork up with the jelly until everything is amalgamated and no jelly lumps remain. 

You can make your own wrappers (double the quantities in that recipe) which is a bit of a pain and it takes a long time, or use ready bought, the meat-receiving side wettened. Fold them like so (YES IT'S ME being all awkward and that, sorry). Do make sure the folds and top are well sealed. 

Place the dumplings on the cabbage leaves (the leaves are so that they don't stick to the plate) while you make the rest. 

Either freeze them now, or cover them and place in the fridge (maximum a day, really) or cook them. To do so, add a tablespoon of oil to a non-stick pan on a medium heat and add the dumplings, flat side down. Fry for 3 minutes until golden, and then add around 5 tbsp cold water, plus the saucepan lid so that they steam. Let them steam for 5 minutes, then remove the lid, evaporate the water off, and let the bottoms fry again for another minute, at which point they should be bronzed.

To serve, garnish with snipped chives, mix the dipping sauce together, and for god's sake - let them cool for 5 minutes, unless you want boiling hot soup squirting straight down your gullet.

As an aside...

If you live in London and can't be arsed to make these, I can make them for you! 30 of them! But wait. What's that? Yes, I DO want something in return. SPONSOR ME!  

In November I'm cycling 500km across Ghana with Child.org over 6 days and I'm fundraising for them. All proceeds go to the charity and its projects; my trip will be entirely funded by myself.