International Bundles of Joy

Fillo dough. I love fillo dough.

Pot stickers. I love pot stickers.

And this recipe combines both in a symphony of international goodness and joy.

I will tell you right off the bat that I forgot to take a picture of the ingredients needed for this recipe. But if you go to the bottom and click on the link provided then you will get the entire recipe so you won’t need a picture.

But, the first thing that you will need is ground pork. And for some reason my local grocery store didn’t have any ground pork. They ALWAYS have ground pork, until I really needed it. What is a girl to do when the grocery store doesn’t have any ground pork and she needs to make a recipe?

Why if you have a nice Kitchen Aid mixer and an even nicer husband who bought a bunch of attachments for it you ground the pork yourself.

You can TOTALLY skip the whole grinding the meat yourself step. I would have if Heinens hadn’t utterly failed me. But I do have to say that there is something SO satisfying about stuffing meat down the little hole at the top and having it come out ground from the side.

Moving on.

Next you take 1 cup of finely shredded cabbage, put it in a bowl and pour boiling water over it. Then you let it sit for 15 minutes, just to wilt it a bit. At the end of that time drain it, dump it into a towel and squeeze the heck out of it. Get as much water out as you can. When you have squeezed it as dry as the Sahara add it to the ground pork.

Next peel and slice two nice and pungent slices of ginger. Then finely chop them and add to the ground pork.

And yes I realize that there is a hair on the ginger. I realized that it was there just after I took the picture. The ginger had, at one point, flown out of my hand and landed on the floor. AFTER I had already sliced off what I needed. I have a dog remember. I took care of it.

Then you spend time chopping up one spring onion and 1/2 cup of water chestnuts and then add them to the pork. I forgot to take a picture of that process so you will just have to imagine it or better yet do it.

And if you are REALLY lazy (like me) instead of taking the time to finely chop all those things you just run everything back through the grinder. Well it was already dirty so why not!

Then there is some salt and sugar and sesame oil to be added. Didn’t take pictures of that either. When you are all done mixing everything up, put some plastic wrap over the bowl and refrigerate the pork for an hour or so.

When your pork mixture is nice and chilled you need to take your fillo dough out, lay it out on the counter and QUICKLY cover it with plastic wrap AND a damp towel. This stuff dries out so fast. And once it is dried out there is no working with it.

Melt some butter. Everything is made better with the addition of butter. Do not use margarine. For this recipe it has too much water content. It has to be butter.

Take one sheet of fillo dough, lay it out and quickly brush the entire surface with melted butter. Repeat with a second layer and a third layer. Then when you lay down a fourth sheet of fillo dough DO NOT slather it with butter. Just leave it dry. When this is done then cut the fillo stack into 8 equal squares. At first I used my pizza cutter but I really think that a big and sharp knife does a better job.

Put a dollop (1/2 teaspoon) full of pork mixture on each square. Then working one square at a time brush water on all the edges of the square and then draw up all the edges to form a sort of bundle.

They should look like this. Or perhaps something a bit more artful. This is the best I have ever been able to come up with.

Then pop them into the oven. While they are baking you can whip up the Ginger Dipping Sauce that goes with the recipe.

After 20 long and anxiety filled minutes………

Try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

Click on the link below to get the recipe.

International Bundles of Joy