Pork and Ginger Potstickers

I've had this recipe forever, so I have no idea the original source. I've tweaked it over the years as I have made these, so I guess it is now MY recipe.

I don't make these often because they can be a little time consuming and because I just don't think about it much. But, they are not difficult to make (although, my husband says time consuming = difficult). They are so worth the extra effort though!

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 Tbsp. salt
1 lb. ground pork
2 Tbsp. minced ginger
1 1/2 Tbsp. minced garlic
2 Tbsp. thin soy sauce
3 Tbsp. sesame oil
1 egg

Goyza wrappers (you could also use wonton wrappers, they will just be a different shape)
1-2 cups chicken stock

Dipping Sauce:

2/3 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
2/3 cup scallions, chopped
2 Tbsp. sesame oil
2 Tbsp. Sambal (I used Sriracha instead)

Directions:

Sprinkle cabbage with salt and let sit 30min. Squeeze out as much water from the cabbage as you can.

Mix all ingredients except stock in a mixing bowl.

I didn't take pictures of the process here, but I used fresh ginger and grated it with a fine grater. Fresh ginger is very strong, so keep that in mind. I have never made this using ground ginger or minced ginger that was not fresh. I think it would really change the final product. So, use fresh ginger.

Place a small scoop in the middle of the wrapper, wet your finger (I have a small bowl of water near me) and wet the edge of the wrapper.

Fold the wrapper over (making a moon shape) and pinch the edges together to seal.

This is where it starts to get time consuming. The biggest issue is just that you have to cook them in small batches, so it takes a while.

Coat your pan with sesame oil (you can use any oil really, but sesame is the best for this recipe). You are not trying to deep fry these things, so you just want to coat the bottom of the pan (sorry, no real measurement here - 2Tbsp, something like that). They naturally stick a little and that's ok, you want them to (that's why they're called potstickers, no really, that is why). You just don't want them to stick so much they burn or you can't get them off the pan.

Place them in the pan making sure not to overcrowd the pan. Let them brown on one side (a couple of min). I like to move them around a little and slide a spatula under them just to make sure they are not sticking too much. Once they have browned, pour a cup of chicken stock in the pan and immediately cover.

BE CAREFUL this will cause all kinds of splattering, so have your lid ready and pour the stock and cover right away. Now, they will steam in the stock until fully cooked. After about 5min, if the liquid is totally evaporated, add more stock (or water). Cook until all the liquid has steamed off (about 7min total).

This part of the recipe really depends on your pan. Mine took about 7min. I used 3 different pans b/c I was making them for a party and was impatient and didn't want to take forever cooking 5 at a time in one pan. Because I only had 2 pans with lids, the 3rd pan I just put foil over the top.

I did not intend for this to be a "which pan works better for this recipe" experiement, but that's what it turned into.

I had only intended on using the pans with lids, but out of desperation also used a pan with foil. It turned out the pan with foil worked much better than the other 2. In fact, one of my lidded pans was so bad (burning the potstickers and sticking so much I couldn't get them out of the pan), I stopped using it completely.

So, if you do not have a pan with a lid (or maybe even if you do), you may want to just use foil over a saute pan instead.

One last thing about the pan, none of the pans I used were nonstick. I just don't own any nonstick pans (I know that's kind of crazy). I got rid of all of them many years ago with all the teflon issues about that stuff scraping off into your food. I think that is not as much of an issue anymore, but I have just never gone back to using them.

Anyway.....

If you used a nonstick pan, I'm sure the results would be way different. You just have to do a batch and adjust from there (more oil if sticking too much, move the potstickers around to prevent them from getting stuck, pan covered in foil needs more liquid added part way through since there is more evaporation etc.) After your first batch, cut into one and make sure the cooking time you are using is cooking the pork all the way (we don't want any undercooked pork here).

Serve with the dipping sauce.
To make: simply put all ingredients in a bowl

These are so dang good. I like them better than some restaurant ones I've had. They have a distinct ginger flavor, which I love, but I suppose if you hate the taste of ginger, you will not like these (and to that I say "poo on you").

Anytime I've taken these to a party, they are a big hit. They're even good cold. One thing I have noticed is that every time I have taken these for a crowd, there is always at least one person that does not eat pork. I've thought about making them with ground chicken sometime, since it pains me to see people pass up on them b/c they contain pork. But I just love them too much to change it up :)

Hope you love them too!





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