Pork-Chive Pot Stickers

I love Chinese food. I might have mentioned it before. The Chinese take-out place in my town knows who we are when we call. I am not sure if that is a good thing and I try not to think about it.

But sometimes I want pot stickers and I don’t want to have to call over there and buy them. I want to make them when I want to make them. I am sort of impatient that way.

And finally I have done it, I have made them. And I have also made a wonderful Ginger-Soy Dipping Sauce to go with them

Can you hear the angels singing?

Do angels like Chinese food?

These are all the things that you are going to need to make these delectable little bundles of goodness. I didn’t label every ingredient because the picture is pretty darn busy and…..

I was lazy. I am sorry.

First you are going to dump your ground pork into a good sized bowl. I was a tad impatient to get these morsels going and I forgot to take some pictures of the first couple of steps. What you see in the picture is that I have added the chopped chives, the grated ginger and the cornstarch.

Oh and lets have a short conversation about ginger. There is ground, dried ginger. There is fresh ginger. For this recipe you need to use fresh ginger. It looks like this:

Don’t be afraid of it. It can’t help that it is ugly and knobby and wrinkled. This happens to all of us. Embrace the ginger. Love the ginger. Take it to dinner and then home with you….. Because it is beautiful inside. And is magical. I buy it and put it directly in the freezer, just as it is. Then when I need it I just drag it out of the freezer and grate what I need, put it back in it’s baggie and pop it back into it’s frozen resting place. Easy as pie.

Now back to the cooking.

Add the soy sauce. There is no other salt in the recipe because, well, you don’t need it with the soy sauce doing all the work.

Add the sherry. I guess that you could leave this out if you have a great aversion to it. But the sherry would be sad.

Add the water. Don’t worry about the color of this particular water. I used the same dish that I had the soy sauce in because I didn’t want to get another dish dirty. You can’t see it but my sink was full to overflowing. We do have nice clean water here at Chez Knit. And we have a reverse osmosis drinking water system that gives the best water EVAH! But maybe that is for another time.

Add the sesame oil. This is just magic stuff that smells like peanut butter to me and totally makes the dish. Do not fear it. But do not use too much of it either.

Then mix everything together with your clean hands. You did wash them didn’t you? Take out all your aggressions and squeeze the stuff through your fingers. And listen to the lovely squishy sound that it makes.

Now for the actual forming. Place a heaping tablespoon of the mixture in the middle of the won ton. Then lightly wet the edges of the square and gather the edges up into a little “purse”.

I have to tell you that the first time that I made these I did them as a triangle. Don’t do that. They take up too much room for one. And when you steam them the outer edges of the triangle go all floppy on you and look like the wings of an awkward teenage pterodactyl. And then you aren’t sure how to pick them up and how to dip them.

It was a scarring and frustrating experience and I am just trying to save you from it.

These are what they should look like. Your own pot sticker army just waiting for battle…….

Then you are going to heat up the oil in the pan and carefully drop the bundles in the hot oil.

Be prepared because they may like to splatter a bit. There isn’t that much oil in the pan but it can happen. After they have cooked for a bit and the bottoms are golden brown you are going to add water to the pan and finish the rest of the cooking with steam.

I do not have a picture of this because steam and cameras are not a good mix. They just don’t get along at all despite arbitration and counseling. They have agreed to disagree.

And while you are waiting you can have some of this. I have to tell you that this particular bottle came from…..

The local CVS. Yes, it was on sale thankyouverymuch and I happen to like Blackstone. But the clerk, who looked to be about 12 years old, proceeded to put it in a brown paper bag for me! I was embarrassed to walk out with it.

Of course I was buying from the pharmacy so perhaps I could have said it was “medicinal”. Yes?

And finally my little bundles of joy were done and ready to be eaten.

And they were delicious.

Link-> Pork and Chive Pot Stickers <-Link