As mentioned in my previous post with the recipe on Pork Dumplings, I finally cooked them in 2 ways - fried as pot stickers and boiled, served with a healthy cabbage soup.
The top shows the pot sticker version while the bottom shows the boiled version. The parents preferred the fried ones while I enjoyed both.
The boiled version is really easy. You just boil them until they float before serving it with soup. I recommend chicken soup or something really salty because some of the residual water from the boiled dumplings will dilute the soup a little.
Now, onto the pot stickers.
Add a little bit of oil onto the pan. This is to start off the frying process but it won't prevent the dumplings from sticking to the bottom of the pot/pan. Hence, the name pot stickers.
Place the dumplings onto the hot pan and cook for 1-2 minutes. This is to ensure that the bottom has a nice browning.
Add a water till it is about 1cm high and then cover the pot for about 8 minutes. Hence, you're essentially cooking the dumplings by frying the bottom and steaming the rest. Lift the lid and continue to cook until the water is totally boiled off. Scrape slightly and remove to plate.
The bottom bit should be brown like above or slightly darker. I flipped my dumplings halfway through because I was a bit scared that some parts weren't evenly cooked.
Serve with black vinegar and julienne ginger OR with my vinegar concoction:
It's a mixture of minced garlic, apple cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and sesame seed oil. Yum! I impressed myself with this.
As this was the first time I was trying the recipe, I must say that I will have to make a bit of adjustments. My best friend added oyster sauce to her filling and I think I will try that out because my meat filling needed a bit more salt to it. Some other recipes that I found online required a bit of stock or water added to the mixture. Again, I think this would've helped keep the filling moist. Also, I felt that I could've added more cabbage and chives. It is really not bad for a first try.
However, the family and I have opposing views on the thickness of the wrap. I like mine with some bite while my mum and bro prefer it really thin. My mum actually dug out the filling for her dumplings...which upset me because it took a lot of effort to wrap them! But she does that in restaurants too...so...I shouldn't feel so mad? But yeah, we had this thickness of 'skin' debate. Well...maybe I should've made 2 batches. Nonetheless, they were not too bad and everything's eaten up! Gone! Nada. That speaks louder than words on the quality, no?
The top shows the pot sticker version while the bottom shows the boiled version. The parents preferred the fried ones while I enjoyed both.
The boiled version is really easy. You just boil them until they float before serving it with soup. I recommend chicken soup or something really salty because some of the residual water from the boiled dumplings will dilute the soup a little.
Now, onto the pot stickers.
Serve with black vinegar and julienne ginger OR with my vinegar concoction:
As this was the first time I was trying the recipe, I must say that I will have to make a bit of adjustments. My best friend added oyster sauce to her filling and I think I will try that out because my meat filling needed a bit more salt to it. Some other recipes that I found online required a bit of stock or water added to the mixture. Again, I think this would've helped keep the filling moist. Also, I felt that I could've added more cabbage and chives. It is really not bad for a first try.
However, the family and I have opposing views on the thickness of the wrap. I like mine with some bite while my mum and bro prefer it really thin. My mum actually dug out the filling for her dumplings...which upset me because it took a lot of effort to wrap them! But she does that in restaurants too...so...I shouldn't feel so mad? But yeah, we had this thickness of 'skin' debate. Well...maybe I should've made 2 batches. Nonetheless, they were not too bad and everything's eaten up! Gone! Nada. That speaks louder than words on the quality, no?
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